Jason Steven
Special to the Tribune
West Nipissing Jam Basketball is making a return to the Ontario rep league, flooring a U-15 boys squad which opened their regular season schedule in Stouffville March 10.
Despite leading much of the first half, and taking a 32-31 lead into halftime against Eurostep 2009 club from Etobicoke, Jam lost the game 69-48. Caleb Rye, Logan Tompkins, Cole Fancy and Ben Steven each scored 6, to lead the Jam scoring.
“It was a bit disappointing that we didn’t match the other team’s intensity in the second half,” said coach Ryan Bennison.
The second game started off slowly for the Jam, trailing 18-6 after the first quarter and 35-19 at halftime to New Horizon Heat from Markham. The Jam battled back however, closing the gap to 3 points late in the fourth quarter, but ran out of time, losing 56-51. Rye netted 11, Elias Briggs dropped 7, while Tompkins and Steven each added 6.
“Much better second half, I think we learned a lot about ourselves in that last game. Attitude and hard work can change anything,” Bennison said. “We crashed the boards hard at both ends,” he added, crediting the work of forwards Briggs, Fancy, Jacob McLeod and Kastin McCartney for their rebounding effort in particular. “We have a lot of work to do, but a lot of good things happened this weekend too.”
4-1 in pre-season tournament
Last month, the Jam played pre-season games in Parry Sound, defeating Parry Sound, Huntsville U-14 and Kirkland Lake in the round-robin, and Huntsville U-14 in the semi-finals before dropping the final game to Midland Waves.
