Barons beat Red Knights in OT thriller

Oakwood Barons’ Bruno Silvestrin has had his ups and downs this basketball season.

Silvestrin was benched for a handful of regular season matches because of his shoddy practice attendance.

But the forward was the hero as the Barons eked out a 46-43 overtime victory over Northern Red Knights in their South Region Tier I semifinal game on Feb. 6, played at Riverdale Collegiate.

The two squads were deadlocked at 43-43 after four quarters, with Silverstrin hitting a pair of key free throws midway through the four-minute overtime session.

Oakwood’s Daniel Allan then connected on another foul shot with 15.5 seconds remaining in OT. Those three points accounted for all of the scoring in the extra session.

Silvestrin said he nonchalantly approached his foul shots in OT.

"I’ve been practicing my free throws the whole season," he said. "I didn’t feel any pressure. It was just normal."

With the victory, Oakwood advances to face Eastern Commerce Saints in the South Region final, scheduled for Feb. 12 at 4:30 p.m. at West Toronto Collegiate.

Regardless of the outcome from the South final, both the Barons and the Saints will move on to the city’s eight-team AAAA championships. The two finalists from that event will advance to the provincial tournament in early March.

Silvestrin, who had six points in the contest, was not entirely happy with his performance. He felt he played poorly and that’s one of the reasons the match required overtime.

"I take a lot of blame for the game," he said. "We could have easily beaten then by 10 or 15 points but I messed up a lot."

Barons’ head coach Anthony Miller was pleased to see Silvestrin come through in the crunch.

"Bruno has been so squirrelly all year," he said. "He’s been in the doghouse all year. So I really think that’s going to help his confidence going into the final game."

Silvestrin had missed an easy layup early in the overtime session.

"And to walk back to the free throw line and to make some free throws, really says a lot about the young man," Miller said.

The Barons’ bench boss though was a bit surprised the contest required overtime. His squad had a five-point lead with just over a minute to play in the fourth quarter.

While Oakwood’s Kenneth Buchanan hit one foul shot down the stretch, Northern sent the game into OT with three-point shots from co-captains Michael Farine and Nem Mitrovic.

"The one thing we said in our huddle (before overtime) was they can beat us any other day, but it ain’t going to be today," Miller said. "We just knew there was no way they were going to beat us."

The game came rather close to going into a second overtime. Just before the final buzzer sounded, Farine let go off a shot from three-point land. But that desperation toss missed its mark.

"I was just hoping it would go in,” said Red Knights’ guard Jamal Mullings, one of eight graduating players on the Northern roster.