For the first two quarters of the Moose Jaw high school basketball league championship final on Tuesday night at Peacock, it looked as if fans were going to be in for a barnburner of a night.
Instead of seeing the Central Cyclones pulling away early and holding control from the start -- as has usually been the case this season -- the 800-plus in attendance saw the Peacock Toilers scrap and claw and hold their ground, eventually trailing by three 35-32 at the half.
But by the time the third quarter was over, things were pretty much decided.
Central broke off an 11-3 run immediately after the break and would outscore the Toilers 26-10 in the frame, building a 19-point edge that would be more than enough to secure the title.
In the end, Central would go on to a 75-64 victory to claim their sixth-straight Moose Jaw city championship.
“I thought we could have started the first quarter better, but you can’t have everything, and in the second half we picked it up, so I was thankful for that,” said Cyclones Grade 12 Mohamed Jabateh, who led the Cyclones with a 20-point showing. “Then we pulled it out, which was most important, and I’m really happy with how things turned out.”
Jabateh scored 10 of his points in the third as Central also used their solid defence to create a host of turnovers and deny the Toilers regular scoring opportunities.
“I knew we’d put in the work all season to get to this position and there was no way we were going to fail and it was great to see it work out,” Jabateh said of the surge. “Now we just have to keep it going all the way to provincials and see what we can do there.”
Central head coach Shaun Muchowski had hoped to see his crew have a bit more space to breathe at the half, but at the same time was confident his troops could pull away in crunch time.
“It was a battle tonight, they played us tough and we definitely had to earn it,” Muchowski said. “It was a matter of executing and playing hard defence and trying to stop their bigs. They have good size and we did a moderately good job tonight. So we’re happy with the win even if we aren’t entirely happy with the performance, at this time of year wins are the most important thing.”
Tommy Vincent added 12 points to the Cyclones' totals, while Kaedyn Banilevic, Ammiel Chin and Kalil Chin all scored 10 points each.
Nathan McDougall led Peacock with 22 points -- including four three-pointers -- while Mac Simpson scored 11 and Bryce Baumann contributed 10.
Both Central and Peacock will host their respective 4A regional playdowns this weekend, with Cyclones going in as the top seed in the province and Peacock ranked second. Action gets underway on Friday afternoon at both schools.
