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47 |Thursday November 16, 2017 | OAKVILLE BEAVER |www.insidehalton.com Loyola survives marathon final to win HCAA boys' volleyball crown By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff Up two sets to none in the Halton Catholic Athletic Association senior volleyball championship, Loyola assistant coach Chris D'Souza gave his player some intstruction. "Guys, when you close this out, we need to line up on the court." Coach Debbie W oolvett jokingly admonished him. "Chris, I think you just cursed us," she said. Loyola would indeed close out the match, but it would take anoth er 75 gut-wrenching minutes to do so after the Holy Trinity Titans ral lied to force a fifth set. Even in the deciding set, Loyola allowed 6-3 and 10-7 advantages to slip away before taking the final four points for a 15-10 victory last Friday "My heart was beating so hard. That was very intense," said Loyola' s Tyler Pavelic. "W e knew we had to pull through. W e didn't want to give up (a) two sets (lead)." The Hawks had reason to be con fident. They had swept their previ- ous two meetings with the Titans and Loyola came into the match a perfect 14-0, having not dropped a set in any of its last 10 victories. The Hawks continued that run with 2 5 -1 8 and 25 -2 1 victories to open the final. Led by the towering duo of Pavelic and Thomas W il liams, who won back-to-back na tional club titles with Mississauga' Pakmen, the Hawks built an early 15-9 lead. Williams' cross-court at tack started a run that saw Loyola take 12 of 16 points. Tommas Meeusen provided strong blocking to give the Hawks a commanding lead. Loyola appeared ready to com plete the sweep but Trinity pro longed the match by taking five of the final six points. The win seemed to spark Trinity, led by the attacks of Alexander and Xavier Odle. Facing match point at 2 5 -2 4 , Trinity staged another rally for a 2 7 -2 5 win to tie the match. "They dug a lot of balls and we let that get in our heads a little," Williams said. In the deciding set, setter Marcus Enriques went to both Williams and Pavelic but mixed in enough sets to Christian Lopac and Joshua New man to keep Trinity off balance. And though Loyola' s big hitters draw m ost of the attention, Pavelic said it' s a team effort. "W e're a good team because we do all the little stuff -- passing, serving, blocking," he said. Loyola's hopes to advance to OFSAA ended Monday with a 3-0 loss to Georgetown in the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference semifinals. * First-step quickness * Reaction skills k Puck control k Power & acceleration k Explosiveness k Puckwork implemented Aquinas wins HCAA Jr. tide in a nailbiter Amrit Arora forced a turn over and scored with a min ute to play to break a 35-35 tie as the St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders went on to edge the Corpus Christi Longhorns 3 9 -3 7 last Friday to win the Halton Catholic Athletic As sociation junior girls' basket ball championship. Arora had a game-high 15 points while Faith Nevado, who hit a couple of free throws down the stretch to seal the victory, had nine. ""I'm so proud of these girls to win the first HCAA championship," said Aqui nas coach Doreen Bonsu. The Raiders took a 17-13 lead into the half but Corpus Christi came out strong in the third quarter. The Long horns used an aggressive press to force turnovers and scored 19 points in the quar ter. That was more points than the defensively-sound Raiders had allowed in six of their 10 wins this season. "W e talked about that," Bonsu said. "They were go ing to have their runs, we were going to have ours. Stay poised, stay calm ." T hat's what the Raiders did. Down 3 2 -2 8 enter ing the final quarter, Aqui nas went on a 7 -0 run, highlighted by Nevado's three-pointer, to regain the lead. Overall, they limited Corpus Christi to ju st five _ _P AGE & LEVELS ^ W throughout the program NOV - JAN TIMESLOTS: * 8-12 HL * 8 - 1 2 Rep * 13-15 Rep * 10-13 Rep Fri Fri Sat Sun * An excellent studentto-instructor ratio PRICE DAYS TIMES 5:30pm 6:30pm 9:00am 9:30am $288 +tax $288 +tax $288 +tax $288 +tax * 10-12 H L & Rep Sat 10:00am $288 +tax WWW.WAVEH0CKEY.CA Register 905-336-3434 x10 or programs@wavehockey.net Aquinas' Faith Nevado tries to protect the ball from Corpus Christi's Victoria Beara during last Friday's Halton Catholic Athletic Association junior girls' basketball championship. Nevado hung on to the ball and Aquinas hung on for the win, 39-37. | photo by Graham Paine - Oakville Beaver points in the final quarter. Even when starter Isabella Boyd fouled out, the Raid ers were able to hold Corpus Christi at bay. "The ladies did a good job breaking their press and capitalizing off turnovers," Bonsu said. "Even when Isabella fouled out, Sophia (Kiriakos) played really good D and Asha (Sunner), Amrit, Faith and Athena (Vasdani) were getting stops and get ting rebounds." Both Corpus Christi and Aquinas finished the season with 10-1 records. The Long horns beat the Raiders 4 1 -3 5 in the third week of the sea son, but Aquinas earned first place in the division with a 3 7 -2 7 victory over Corpus Christi in the final game of the regular season. Aquinas should prove to be a tough team to beat again next year with four Grade 9s in the starting lineup eligible to return next season. That includes Sunner, who had six points and Boyd, who had five. Victoria Beara led Corpus Christi with 13 points while Olivia Giacobbo had 10 points. -- Herb Garbutt