Jason Teakle
BRANT NEWS

Marcus Jones didn’t let bleeding on the court after taking a knee to the head stop him from leading the North Park Collegiate Trojans senior boys’ basketball team to victory.

The Trojans beat the St. John’s College Green Eagles 49-42 at Brantford Collegiate Institute on Tuesday night in Game 1 of a best-of-three Brant County championship series.

Jones played most of the second half with a bandage wrapped around his head and went to hospital after 
the contest wrapped up. He netted 16 points for NPC 
and was the game’s top scorer.

Jones said he was impressed with his team’s performance.

“We had stifling defence throughout the game,” Jones said. “We played as a team should, as one unit.

“SJC went on a bit of a run, but we bounced back and kept our lead at double digits (for most of the game).”

The Trojans outplayed the Green Eagles in the first two quarters of play, with the score at halftime sitting at 22-10. SJC surged in the fourth quarter, making the game closer in the late stages.

Green Eagle Tim Dawson said his team needs to be more consistent.

“We need to keep up the intensity we had in the last three minutes,” Dawson said. “Our defence wasn’t there and we need to be smarter on offence.

“We need to be smarter with the ball because we had a lot of turnovers.”

Trojans’ head coach Todd Andrew said his team started the game strong.

“We set the tone defensively,” Andrew said. “We put ourselves in a comfortable position up 20 points.

“SJC is a good team. We needed to keep limiting their shot opportunities.”

Andrew said the Trojans could have defended their net better as the game came to a close.

“Our execution could have been better,” Andrew said. “We need to keep up good team defence and be able to continue with the offensive balance we had tonight. We had three guys in the double digits (in points).”

NPC’s Logan Varga was one of those players, netting 12 points in the game.

“We held them to 10 points in the first half,” Varga said. “We put a lot of emphasis on defence because we don’t want to give them easy points.”

SJC head coach Nick Esposito said the Green Eagles need to stop the Trojans on the rebound in Game 2.

“They had way too many second chance opportunities tonight,” Esposito said. “We need to protect the ball because we are turning it over too much.

“I am proud they didn’t quit and worked hard until the end.”

The Trojans and Green Eagles will play Game 2 of the series at BCI on Thursday beginning at 8:30 p.m.

In junior action, the St. John’s College Green Eagles downed North Park 54-46 in Game 1 of that series.