NB team wins town title
Published Wednesday July 1st, 2009
Dalhousie - Much of the best basketball talent in northern NB was on display Sunday at a tournament played at Dalhousie Regional High School.
Four teams competed in the event including U19 teams from Campbellton, Jacquet River/Dalhousie and Miramichi along with the NB U16 boys' team, on which Matt Daley of Jacquet River and Joe Maxwell of Dalhousie are members. Paul Daley of Jacquet River is the head coach while Tyler Gedeon in Listuguj is an assistant coach.
It all added up to pretty exciting and fast paced basketball and tough highly competitive play by all teams. Several players in the tournament will be suiting up with college teams in the fall and even more will be likely to follow that path in years to come.
"I was talking with a AUS coach just last week," said Paul Daley who organized the tournament. "He he told me that college level teams need to starting looking north more often when looking to recruit. And this tournament shows there is some truth to that.
"Too often college recruiters don't venture into this part of the province looking for talent but there is definitely some here and the word is starting to get out. The level of play seen here today shows there is talent up here in the north as the sport has grown so much in the past 20 years."
It was the NB U16 boys' provincial team that was victorious, but it was by no means an easy win.
They faced the Jacquet River squad in a physical and very spirited match. Jacquet River started slowly while NB came out guns-a-blazin taking a 53 -33 lead into the half.
Jacquet River rallied to get back to with six points in the 4th quarter but couldn't close the gap with NB winning by a score of 97-89.
Matt Daley helped NB's cause by scoring 15 points (second highest scorer) and Joe Maxwell had two points to go along with his five rebounds and two assists.
Ryan Smith and Rob Daley were the story for JR scoring 34 and 32 respectively.
In the tournament's first semi-final, the Jacquet River Tigers U19 boys took it to a young and inexperienced but very talented Campbellton squad by a score of 111- 66. Though Campbellton put on an excellent display of shooting , JR's rebounding and running game proved to be too much as JR pulled away early for the win.
Top Scorers for JR were Robby Daley with 31, Matt Smearer 24 and Jordan Shea 15. Houston Barnaby led the Campbellton attack scoring 14, while Fraser Barnaby and Nathan Trecartin added nine each.
In the second semi-final the NB U16 boys defeated the Miramichi U19 Rebels by a score of 95-70. The game started slowly for NB as they trailed after one quarter and led by only five at the half. DRHS players Matt Daley had seven points, six assists, five rebounds and three steals in the victory while Maxwell chipped in with three points, four boards and two steals.
In Game 3, the consolation final, Miramichi got out to an early lead over Campbellton and held off some great three-point shooting by the Campbellton boys to win 88-70.
Campbellton was led by 18 from Pat McNaughton, 14 from Houston Barnaby and 10 from Fraser Barnaby.
The Jacquet River boys will be back in action in late July when the play in the Saint John Loyalist Summerfest basketball tournament at UNBSJ. The the following week, they, along with the Campbellton boys will host the second annual Bon Ami tournament at DRHS.
This event will feature five teams from Fredericton, Campbellton, Dalhousie and Quebec City.
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