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Blues rattle Sabres at Showdown

The Paul Kane Blues survived a brief scare in Thursday’s tournament opener at the 20th annual Optimist Showdown in St. Albert.

The Paul Kane Blues survived a brief scare in Thursday’s tournament opener at the 20th annual Optimist Showdown in St. Albert.

The Wetaskiwin Sabres, ranked 10th in 3A men’s basketball at the semester break, were no pushovers as the Blues prevailed 72-69 in a hard-fought affair at Paul Kane High School.

“They’re pretty high up in their standings but we weren’t too worried at all. We came out and saw what they had and in the second half we got the job done,” said Kevin Blair, the top scorer for Paul Kane with 30 points.

The valuable Grade 12 shooting guard turned his team’s fortunes around with a scintillating 25-point performance in the second half.

“I had to step up but so did everybody else,” he said. “We weren’t doing so well in the first half. We struggled scoring points. We couldn’t shoot at all.”

Down by two after the first quarter the Blues fell behind by seven when head coach Cam Fischer wisely called a timeout with 4:26 left until halftime. When play resumed, Blair uncorked a three-ball to rally the troops. Another big three by Sean Allen put the Blues up 35-34 with 63 seconds to play. Connor Bradley closed out the first half with a free throw and a field goal as the Blues led by four at the break.

“At halftime in the locker room we said, ‘You know what? Let’s get things done. This team is not as good as us. We know we can beat any team out there,’” Blair said. “We came out and transitioned the ball, got good rebounds, some good put-backs and won the game.”

After the Sabres pulled to within three, Blair wheeled into action with an offensive rebound and a couple of put-backs. The third basket was triggered by a stuff by Shane Kolba and on the turnover Bradley flew down the court only to miss on the layup but Blair followed through with the two points.

Blair recorded 14 of his team’s 19 points in the 10-minute period as the Blues led 57-49 at quarter time.

In the fourth quarter, Blair drained a pivotal three-pointer to make it 66-56 with 5:57 remaining.

“When I can make shots like that it gives me a lot of confidence. It makes me feel like I can do better and my team can do better too,” said the Blair, the only player remaining on the Paul Kane roster from the 2008 4A provincial gold medallists and metro Edmonton premier conference champions.

Bradley finished the game with 11 points and Kolba chipped in with nine. Tyler Wise added seven coming off the bench.

“It was defence that did it for us. Every time we scored we got back and played tough D,” Blair said.

Wetaskiwin’s big man, Sean Morin, gave the Blues a tough time in the paint while tacking up 28 points, including a three early in the last quarter to bring the Sabres to within three of the leaders.

The Showdown lid-lifter marked the first game for Paul Kane since Jan. 11, an 83-49 thumping of the winless Salisbury Sabres in league play.

“We were rusty because of the exam break but we still had lot of practices. The coaches ran us a lot and it helped,” Blair said.

After beating Wetaskiwin, the Blues are 10-6 overall, plus 5-1 in premier as the pool B leaders.

In the 16-team men’s bracket Friday, the Blues played the Bedford Road Redmen of Saskatoon in the A-side quarter-finals but the score was unavailable at press time. In today’s draw the semifinals tip off at 10:45 a.m. at Paul Kane and Bellerose Composite High School. Paul Kane hosts the third-place game at 4:15 p.m. and the final at 6:15 p.m.

“Because this is our home tournament we want to come out with a win and if we do that it’s going to be good for us when we get back to playing league games,” said Blair, who celebrated a Showdown victory in 2008 with the Blues. “We can do it. All we have to do is come out and play defence. It’s all about defence with our team.”

The next league game is Monday at home against the St. Francis Xavier Rams (6-0) at 4:45 p.m. The top team in pool A is ranked third in 4A while Paul Kane is unranked.

FOUL SHOTS: The Showdown schedule gets under way today at 9 a.m. at Paul Kane, Bellerose, St. Albert Catholic High School and Morinville Community High School. The men’s consolation final is 6:15 p.m. at Bellerose.

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