Last November, the Frontenac Falcons from Kingston won the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations senior girls double-A basketball championship.
On Wednesday, in Windsor, the senior boys’ team from Frontenac duplicated the feat.
The Falcons won five straight games, including the gold medal final over the Crescent Coyotes from Toronto, 47-41.
The Falcons made their way to the final by downing Anderson Collegiate of Whitby 81-41 in the first round on Monday, the Silverthorn Spartans of Toronto 67-34 in the second round and Windsor’s W.F. Herman Green Griffins 64-59 in the quarterfinals on Tuesday.
In Wednesday’s semifinal, they defeated the Ashbury Colts of Ottawa 42-36.
“This championship is tough to put into words,” said Falcons forward Andrew Steven.
The fifth-year senior is one of three graduating players.
“We just have so much fun together,” Steven said.
“We’ve worked so hard for this. We did the work in practice and in game situations but the coaches worked just as hard.
I can’t say enough about Duncan Cowan, Jim Latimer, Justin Wallace, Vince Dufour and Connor Carey. We have incredible coaches who deserve most of the credit.”
The Falcons entered the tournament as the number one seed and the boys lived up to the expectations.
“I am so proud of these guys,” said head coach Cowan.
The former assistant coach with the Queen’s University Gaels guided his team to an undefeated campaign. He says they felt the pressure all season long but constantly rose to the occasion.
“This is a very close team,” Cowan said.
“They enjoyed being together and shared in the process of winning OFSAA. We had different guys who stepped up this week and without those guys filling those spots, we would not have had a chance to win. We had pressure on us in Windsor but the boys craved the opportunity to play with that pressure and they excelled in that situation, which was fantastic.”
It was the first OFSAA gold medal won by a Frontenac boys basketball team since 2003, when the Falcons, coached by Suche James, captured the triple-A championship in Sudbury.