Nate Jones wasn’t going to let a serious injury keep him off the court in his final season of high school basketball.
The 17-year-old, Grade 12 student suffered a torn Achilles tendon last season but was determined to get back in action.
Jones poured in 19 points as the Greater Fort Erie Gryphons defeated the Thorold Golden Eagles 49-38 Monday at Thorold in one of eight opening-round games at the 61st Annual Standard High School Basketball Tournament.
Jones, who played at the club level with the Pelham Panthers last season, suffered the injury in the third game of the season last year versus West Niagara.
“It’s hard,” he said. “I’m a little rusty. I just need to get my shot on.”
Jones admitted the rehab was difficult.
“It was about a year,” he said. “I went to physio for about five months. I did stretches for it. It’s still not 100 per cent but I wanted to play.”
Jones said if he didn’t make it back, it wasn’t going to be because he didn’t work hard enough.
“I tried to come back at all costs,” he said.” I still stretch it every day and ice it. I try to do different things.
“It was just the thought of, you know, playing again. I just love the game and I wanted to play.”
Fort Erie coach Dave Adamek loves what Jones brings to the Gryphons.
“Nate’s so good, he’s such a good player,” Adamek said. “This is his third year playing senior. Lots of experience.
“He’s our guy.”
Adamek said Jones does it all.
“Good with the ball and he can shoot. He won a three-point competition at a tournament last week. He runs the floor very well. Even with the old man Achilles heel, he still runs hard.”
Adamek tried to give Jones a break Monday, but to no avail.
“I tried to pull his minutes back. He said he wasn’t playing that great and yet, if I ask him how he’s feeling and I say I’m going to take him off, he doesn’t want anything to do with it.
“He’s got to keep playing. That’s the kind of guy you want and we’re lucky that we have that kind of guy.”
The 10th-ranked Gryphons led 20-19 and the half and 33-28 after three quarters.
“I told them just stay patient, spacing on offence,” Adamek said. “I know we were a work in process on offence. Defensively, and I’ve been telling them this for a long time, I figured we’d be pretty good. We’re big, we rebound aggressively, we don’t give too many offensive rebounds off.
“The guys played hard and it worked out pretty well for us.”
Thorold coach Marc Dupont surmised a case of the jitters may have gotten the best of his squad.
“I really feel maybe because there’s a big crowd we played a little tentative, we played a little nervous,” he said. “Early on we were getting lots of turnovers and we didn’t take advantage. We were missing layups, we were missing opportunities.
“And then in the second half we kind of came out a little flat and I think we started to worry we’re not going to win this and started making more mental mistakes.”
Dupont is confident his charges can turn things around.
“We’ve got another game tomorrow, so hopefully tomorrow we show up with a little more confidence and we’ll do better.”
Dupont tipped his cap to the Gryphons.
“I was really impressed at how well GFESS handled pressure and how they moved the ball. They moved the ball around and they made those extra passes to get those open looks.”
STATS PACK
Gryphons 49 Golden Eagles 38
Cat’s Caboose Players of the Game: Fort Erie’s Nate Jones and Thorold’s Tate Fraser.
Greater Fort Erie Gryphons: Nate Jones 19; Harland Kelly 8; Carter Lewis 7; Cade Tyrell 5; Carter Reichel 2; Aiden Storring 2; Ethan Pooler 2; Michael Bielich 2; Kaiden Hickens 2.
Thorold Golden Eagles: Tayte Fraser 17; Armann Sandhu 4; Tyler Lampman 4; Spencer Fluellon 3; Miller Miotto 3; Tyrese Gibson 2; Israel Anuku 2; Mujeeb Aruna 2; Mujeeb Aruna 2.
By: Bill Potrecz
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