By Larry Moko
Led by a core group of football players, the St. John Henry Newman Cardinals have qualified for next week’s Ontario AAA high school basketball tournament in Sarnia.
Newman earned the OFSAA berth by defeating the Halton champion Holy Trinity Titans, 59-49, in the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference final on Tuesday.
The top scorers for Newman – Alex DiFrancesco, Nick Garcia, Markus Palermo and Lucas Barresi --- all were members of the Cardinals senior football team which three months ago topped the Nelson Lords to win a GHAC semifinal in that sport.
The Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic representatives trailed the visiting Titans 43-41 early in the fourth quarter before Palermo drained a 3-point shot to spark an 11-0 run by the Cardinals. And key during that surge was the rebounding and scoring under the basket by 6-foot-4, 215-pound Garcia.
“Our guys just clamped down and executed defensively,” Newman coach Victor Raso said. “Garcia had his best fourth quarter of the season, that’s for sure.”
Garcia came off the bench to score 12 points. He tapped in his own missed shot to give the Cardinals a 50-43 lead with 75 seconds remaining and then grabbed the rebound of a failed Newman free throw to lay it back in and end the final Titans threat.
“When it was tied late in the game their big guy did a great job on the boards,” Holy Trinity coach Andrew Saulez said. “We’re not a big team. They made us pay when we didn’t get the rebound.
“I have a lot of respect for how hard (Newman) worked.”
Newman got a game-high 17 points by point guard Alex DiFrancesco, while Palermo netted 10 and Barresi contributed nine.
The leading scorers for the Titans were Amare Hamilton, with 16 points, Jamie Chima, with 12, and Jaeden Briscoe, with nine.
Barresi and Garcia – a quarterback and two-way end, respectively, in football --- share the centre position on the court for Newman.
“(Garcia’s) strengths are like how aggressive he is,” the Newman coach said. “He has no issue getting physical. He’s a really good rebounder and finisher with a natural feel and talent.”
When discussing his involvement in football and basketball, Garcia said: “Basketball is definitely my second sport. But throughout the year I felt I’ve been getting better as we go.”
DiFrancesco and Palermo are receiver-defensive-back types on the gridiron. In basketball, they’re back-court starters.
“Alex is our engine … he’s just a rock,” Raso said of DiFrancesco’s dynamic playmaking skills and dribble drives to the hoop.
The 18-team OFSAA tournament is scheduled for March 6-8.
“We lost to a good basketball team,” Saulez said. “They were 7-7 in the regular season but they ran the table in the Catholic playoffs. They beat good teams down the stretch, all on the road. That league is so tough.”
Newman also defeated Holy Trinity 48-46 recently at an All-Catholic tournament game.
Earlier this season Raso spoke of wanting to “change the narrative” for the team’s football players who had yet to capture a senior championship in either football or basketball.
“We stayed fundamental,” Garcia said. “We did the gritty stuff you have to do like going down on the floor for loose balls and playing your hardest every possession.”
The last time Newman won a GHAC boys’ basketball title and went to OFSAA was 2017. That team was also coached by Raso.
In other GHAC sports Tuesday, the Bishop Tonnos Titans took the AAA girls’ volleyball championship with a 3-1 decision over the Abbey Park Eagles in Oakville (25-14, 25-20, 24-26, 25-22). That result advances the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic league champions to the OFSAA tournament March 6-8 in Barrie.