The 1957 Sir Adam Beck Spartans now have company. The Mother Teresa Spartans (MTS) captured the AAA Boys Basketball Championship Wednesday night 59-51 over AY Jackson to become the first London, Ont. boys team to win the highest-level title in 69 years. “It’s really exciting especially for the guys that weren’t at OFSAA last year, but for the guys that we’re at OFSAA and came second last year, now we get the gold,” said Spartans captain Isiah Slay, who had 13 points in the final. MTS did win the AA boys championship in 2018. In Wednesday’s final, MTS jumped out to a 10-0 first quarter lead on the back of two Jacob Brown three-pointers, and two more buckets by Slay. After the early start, the Spartans shooting would go cold against the Jaguars’ zone defence and the Toronto school would take the lead at 19-18. The teams would trade buckets from there and MTS lead 29-28 at the break. In the third quarter, the Spartans would find a bit of separation. Slay would score seven more points, and Brown added six in the quarter as MTS stretched the lead to 47-40 after 24 minutes heading into the fourth. MTS would start sluggish in the final frame, but Yannis Lugogo and Brown would hit back-to-back three-point field goals to extend their lead back to seven. Leading 56-51 with 20 seconds to go, a key steal by Peace Tshibasu sealed it, and Lugogo capped it with an emphatic slam at the buzzer as the Spartans won it. “It feels great,” said Lugogo, the Spartans point guard. “It shows everyone in London that we’re the best team in the province. I feel like we have one of the hardest schedules in the tournament and we beat most of the teams by 10 or more, so I feel like we’re we showed we’re the best team in this tournament.” After losing in the final last year, this was revenge for the returning players. They believe hosting the tournament and having a large contingent of fans helped. “Last year we came second but we were in Kingston, but now we’re in London,” added Slay. “We had all of our fans who support us, to go all the way.” Jacob Brown led all scorers with 21 points for the winners.
