Jonathan Koud, Narcisse Kalamba Lead Alma to Dairy Town Classic Title

Sussex, NB–For the third year in a row, @NorthPoleHoops attended the Dairy Town Classic in Sussex, New Brunswick, and for the third year in a row we saw the ultimate basketball Tournament. The community of Sussex has passion for basketball and it pours out in tournament organization, fan support and community support like no place else.

One of the standards that the organizing committee has, is hosting the highest level basketball teams they can find regardless of their own team’s abilities. This is not the norm as most tournament hosts at least set it up to get their teams to the final, and I must say this is refreshing.

Because of this, there are some lopsided games as high calibre teams like St. Mike’s of former years and Alma Academy this year compete against small schools. That being said, these small schools like Sussex battle hard and compete at the highest level which in turn will help build the game on the East coast, inspiring athletes and teams to reach new heights.

The tournament unfolded this way as Alma Academy, a prep school out of Quebec rolled through the tournament with NCAA Division 1 prospects. Well, that is until the championship game when they played the Fredericton Black Cats. The game started out looking like Alma was going to run away with it as Narcisse Kalamba threw down the alley-oop lob from Jonathan Koud to give Alma the 11-4 lead half way through the first quarter.

It looked especially daunting for Fredericton when their guard Val Nelson picked up his second foul in the first quarter…that’s when Sawyer Eddy started splashing threes and Pail Gerges came off the bench and handled the Alma pressure, allowing the Black Kats to close out the first frame on an 11-8 advantage to keep the game close at 19-15 Alma.

The game turned into an absolute defensive battle; Fredericton’s Sawyer Eddy and Alma’s Jonathan Koud were the only efficient offensive contributors for either team.  Koud was showing it all by dropping threes, attacking the paint and picking pockets to get lay-ins, emerging as the best player in the game. Eddy just made timely shots until 6-5 forward Dan Luton got it going and gave Fredericton a 26-25 lead with a two handed flush mid way through the second Q on a Stanley Mayambo assist.

As everyone on Alma outside of Koud continued to struggle, Fredericton took a 39-33 lead into the half behind balanced team play with eight players hitting the score sheet.

Fredericton continued to role in the third quarter and extended their lead to 14 behind Sawyer Eddy threes, and it looked like Fredericton was going to role away with it. Jonathan Koud broke the 7-0 Fredericton run with a tough and-one finish. Narcisse Kalamba got himself going on a transition throw down that cut the score 50-40 and got the fans off their seats and cheering for Alma, shifting momentum.

Alma continued their run, closed the gap and got the game to 52-47 going into the 4th Q.

With four minutes remaining Kalamba broke his shooting slump and cashed a three to give Alma their first lead of the second half 57-56. As the game turned into a bit of a track meet, Stanley Mayambo finished in transition with craft, to give Fredericton the 58-56 lead.

To rebuttal, tournament MVP Narcisse Kalamba splashed the three, followed by a nasty and-one dunk on a defender, and finished the three-point play to give Alma the 62-58 lead.

This type of play would have sealed it and buried a weak willed team–Fredericton is not that. Stanley Mayambo made the tough lay up to cut the Alma lead to 65-63 and after the great D by Fredericton, Val Nelson nailed the foul line jumper to tie the game at 65 with 36 seconds remaining. Each team had turnovers on the next possessions which set up Narcisse Kalamba’s two made FTs with 6.7 seconds remaining to give Alma Academy the 67-65 win and the 2014 Dairy Town Classic Championship.

Jonathan Koud led Alma with 26pts and Sawyer Eddy led Fredericton with 20.

In the Women’s Championship Game a sharp shooting Kennebecasis Valley defeated Colonel Gray 78-67.  Magan Beaisly dropped 6 threes for Kennebecasis to score 24 points and Jenna Mae Ellsworth led Colonel Gray with 28.

 

 

 

Coaches/players if you are interested in this tournament please check out the DTC website for tournament application.

http://www.dairytownclassic.com/index.html