Panthers fall just short in Championship thriller

Paris Panthers’ Canaan Sherbino surveys the floor while setting up a play during high school basketball action, drawing close defensive coverage as he controls the tempo for his team.

George Le Gresley

Sports Correspondent

The last time Paris District High School made it to a Senior basketball final was in 2001. For this year’s edition, it was a four-year project, and as Juniors, they started with a winless season. The only obstacle has been the Assumption Saints, who, during the regular season’s two meetings, had defeated the Panthers. Those two losses to ACS were the only two for the Panthers, and the team’s goal was to reach the final and meet the Saints. They reached that goal, and the final was last Monday at Assumption’s gym, with a full house of basketball fans.

Assumption took charge of the scoresheet, leading all the way, at one point holding an eight-point lead, and eventually leading the Panthers by 20-15 at the end of the first quarter. The score could have been closer had a few shots gone in, but the feeling on the team was that the Panthers were still in the game.

In the second quarter, the Panthers started fast, catching up on the scoreboard to 20-19. At that point, Assumption came on strong, stretching their lead to 32-21.  The Panthers kept on battling to end the half at 34-39. Normally, Paris Canaan Sherbino dominates the scoring, but in this game, with the Saints double-teaming him, he was held to 8 points. The game plan became obvious: the team would have to get more players involved in scoring, with Elliott Scheidel scoring 8, Dexter Quesnel scoring 5, and Eoin Wright and Nathan Brewster scoring 4 points each.

The final two quarters were the most dramatic, exciting minutes of basketball one could witness! The Panthers trailed most of the third quarter, almost catching up with ACS with 3:45 left, trailing 40-38, and at the end of the quarter, trailing 47-44. 

In the final quarter, Elliot Scheidel was a beast, blocking shots and grabbing rebounds on both ends of the court, stopping Assumption from stretching their lead. With 2:40 left in the game, the Panthers trailed by a score of 52-50. The last two minutes of the game were full of missed attempts, turnovers, and fouls. The Panthers' strategy now was to foul the opposition to stop the clock intentionally and hope the fouled player would miss their shots so that they could take possession of the ball and score either a 2- or 3-point field goal. The plan worked so well that with 24.8 seconds left to play, Paris trailed 56-54. The only thing that defeated the Panthers was, of course, ACS, but time was the Saints' as they won the game 57-54.

The Panthers advanced to the CWOSSA tournament over the weekend. We will publish an update on their performance in next week’s edition.