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Sports Oakville Beaver SPORTS EDITOR: JON KUIPERIJ Phone 905-845-3824 (ext. 255) Fax 905-337-5567 email sports@oakvillebeaver.com · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2008 41 Small-school Cavs have big ambitions KCC boys' basketball team eyes Division 2 title, OFSAA berth By Herb Garbutt OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Edge on the competition Oakville's smallest high school has some big-time momentum. With the regional final just two weeks away, the King's Christian Collegiate Cavaliers established themselves as the favourite for the Halton Division 2 senior boys' basketball title by beating the Milton District Mustangs 62-45 Tuesday. It was the Cavaliers' seventh straight victory, a streak that may now be eight if it had not been for a three-point buzzer beater that gave Milton a 54-53 victory the last time the teams met. "We have some That December loss dropped King's Christian to 0-2, but it has chemistry now yet to visit the loss column since and we're playing then. The Cavaliers, now 7-2, took very well together. over sole possession of first place Our coach has with the win over Milton, which helped us get to also came into the game with a 62 record. where we are." King's Christian's Youssef Abel Youssef Abel-Malek Malek said the team didn't doubt itself after its slow start. "We have some chemistry now and we're playing very well together. Our coach has helped us get to where we are," said Abel-Malek, who had 18 points. "We've played some really strong teams from Mississauga (in tournaments). I think we can match up against most teams." A good reason for that is the diversity of the Cavaliers' lineup. In addition to strong outside shooting from AbelMalek and Tristan Sandhu, who had a game-high 20 points, first-year coach Richard Stewart couldn't believe his good fortune when he walked into the gym for the team's first practice and saw 6-foot-8 Ray Spitoff and 6-foot-4 George Foty. "I thought, `I can work with that'," Stewart said with a smile. Outside shooters complement post players While Spitoff and Foty give the team the option of battling inside and dominating the boards, the Cavaliers instead relied Tuesday on the long-range shooting talents of AbelMalek, Sandhu and Jason Cornelius, who combined to hit six three-pointers. That's not to say their big men weren't involved. Foty finished with eight points and Spitoff was an ideal decoy. The Cavaliers often lobbed passes to Spitoff at the edge of the key and he then kicked the ball back outside when he drew coverage, giving the Cavs wide-open shots. "Some games we do go into the big guys," Stewart said. "Today we ran up and down and (Spitoff and Foty) can do that too." Stewart said the team's slow start had much to do with the players learning to play together within the new system he instituted. "We had to get the guys acclimated and it took the first game or two," Stewart said. "Now, through the season, they've started to coalesce and they're passing to each other." Tuesday, they were all on the same page, no more so than during a second-quarter 17-3 run that essentially put the game away. Using a pressure defence, the Cavaliers forced Milton to turn the ball over and then made the most of their long-range shots. Sandhu hit back-to-back threes and added DOUG SHELLEY / SPECIAL TO THE OAKVILLE BEAVER GOLDEN SKATE: The Oakville Edge pre-novice team struts its stuff as part of its gold-medal showing at the recent Six-O-Skate competition in Peterborough. The pre-novices posted two strong performances to win their division by five points, while their Edge teammates, the high performance pre-juvenile squad, executed all of its required elements with no deductions to earn its highest point total of the season and also win gold. Both teams will represent the Oakville Skating Club at the provincial championships in Oshawa later this month. Pictured are Tine Ramsden, Katelyn Palmer, Christina Licastro, Hannah Sweett, Chelsey Stamegna, Ashley Kenny, Lia Han, Gabrielle Schneider, Alisha Butani, Sarah Locke, Katie Orlando, Keara Maynard and Hannah Nilsson. OT swimmers hope to continue ascent The Oakville Trafalgar Red Devils shook up Halton's traditional swimming powers last season. This year, the team hopes to continue to ride that wave. "What was nice is that it has always been Georgetown and Notre Dame (finishing first and second at Haltons)," said Kathy Stearns-Brown, who coaches the team with Rob Sargent, "so for us to come second, that was the first leap." The next jump is a doozy, though. Kind of like setting up a ramp on the edge of the Grand Canyon. OT's season culminated in a fifthplace finish at the provincial high school championships. However, the four teams that finished ahead of them -- Riverside and Kennedy Collegiate of Windsor, Lasalle's St. Thomas of Villanova and Halton rival Georgetown -- have dominated the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) championships for the better part of a decade. While those schools have their own pools, OT has to travel to train at White Oaks and Centennial Pool. That hasn't stopped the 41 members of the team from arriving for 7 a.m. practices twice a week since Thanksgiving, plus another weekly afternoon session. The Devils may not be ready to end Georgetown's eight-year reign as the Halton and Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference (GHAC) champions just yet, but they should again vie for runner-up status and send another strong contingent to OFSAA. The Devils will have two previous OFSAA medalists on the blocks for them at next Wednesday's Halton championships at McMaster University. Rachel Petford won OFSAA gold in the junior girls' 50-metre backstroke and silver in the 100m individual medley last year, and two years ago Jeff MacSween was a provincial silver medalist in the junior boys' 100m individual medley. OT had a third OFSAA medalist in the pool at the beginning of the season, but Andrew Kadwell graduated after the first semester. "Losing Andrew is going to hurt," Stearns-Brown said. Chris Andison, Patricio Gomez and breaststroke specialist J.D. Middleton will help fill the void on the boys' team while on the girls' side, Stearns-Brown said Shauna Moore "has really stepped it up," in both the 50m freestyle and 50m breaststroke. Tori Rooke and Gwen Scott will be other swimmers to watch at Haltons. OT will also have a strong open division girls' medley relay team that includes Jen Wilson, Katie Fox, Karina Silas and Veronica Davis-Freeman. Oakville Trafalgar is competing at a meet today (Friday) in Burlington, a final tune-up for the Halton championships. The Red Devils are squaring off against T.A. Blakelock, Robert Bateman, Iroquois Ridge and Georgetown in that meet. -- Herb Garbutt See KCC page 42