That’s not a surprise to anyone.
What might be is just how dominant they’ve been in getting back to this point – and how they’ve managed to keep finding success despite suffering a major injury to one of their key players.
The Cyclones rolled to a 115-21 victory over the Assiniboia Rockets in the league semfinal at Central on Tuesday night, advancing to gold medal game on Tuesday at Sask Polytech.
Given how things were far closer between the two teams in their first match-up of the season, Cyclones head coach Ryan Boughen was happy with their defensive performance as much as how many points they put on the board.
“We went through some bumps at the start of the year, just learning and growing as a young team, and when we played them earlier we had 73 points and they put up 40,” he said. “So we certainly improved this year and that’s a good thing.”
Central wasn’t leaving anything to chance against Assiniboia and will look to carry the same level of play into the city championship final against the Peacock Toilers, meaning more the same going forward.
“It’s high school athletics so anything can happen, you can shoot the ball poorly one night and that could be it,” Boughen said. “That’s one of the reasons we put so much emphasis on defence; that should be the one thing that’s a contest for us and if we play well defensively, we’ve found ourselves in most games. So we’ll keep focussing on that and get ready.”
They’ll do so, as they have much of the last month, without the services of provincial team player Dylan Boughen. He continues to recover from a fractured fibula in his left leg and is all but certain to be unavailable the rest of the campaign, including regionals this weekend and Hoopla beyond that.
“That’s something we talked to the kids about, these things happen in sports and it’s something we can’t change,” coach Boughen said. “So that forces other kids to have to step up and we’re always working on those things, doing what we can to increase our depth… that’s the way it is with modern basketball, you can’t be a one or two player team, you need that balance and that’s what we’re always looking for.”
The Toilers, meanwhile, will also be looking for more of the same after battling to a hard-fought 64-57 victory in their semifinal with the Vanier Vikings.
Vanier took a 25-24 lead out of the first half but were unable to hold on, as Peacock would take a 48-43 edge into the final frame and go on to the seven-point win.
Devin Baumann led all scorers with 26 points, while Tollefson finished with 12 and Tata Mugisha 11. Vanier had a 17-point showing from Nathan Mieli, Josh Auger added 10.
