Born in Timmins but truly rising to prominence as a high-school basketball coach during his time in Sudbury, Mitch Lalonde forged a legacy of court excellence that would see teams representing both the Sudbury Secondary School North Stars and Lasalle Lancers contest provincial titles with regularity.

In so many ways, he was all about basketball in the north.

As 32 junior and senior boys teams from northern Ontario gathered to contest the fourth annual Mitch Lalonde Memorial Tournament this past weekend, one can well imagine the Sudbury Sports Hall of Famer looking down with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes.

Mind you, he might well be lamenting the lack of local content in the “A” finals as the Korah Colts (Sault Ste Marie) upended the O’Gorman Knights (Timmins) 50-34 in the senior gold medal encounter while the Espanola Spartans trimmed the O’Gorman juniors 48-44 in the earlier encounter.

Coach Lalonde enjoyed many titanic battles over the year with schools from Sault Ste Marie and the current edition of the Korah side would have made for a very worthy adversary.

“Our five starters have been playing together for a very long time, probably grade six’ish – and playing club ball with the Steel City Slam and coach Jeff Giovanatti,” noted Korah head coach Aidan Chard. “I have to give a lot of credit to him for instilling the foundational skills that are really starting to shine as these guys progress.”

“I am just happy to be the coach who gets to continue to grow the core unit,” Chard added.

His team up 19-4 in the final after a single quarter of play, the SSM native who went away for university (Brock, Lakehead) before returning home to teach was thrilled that the lads stuck closely to their M.O. with gold medals on the line.

“Defense is our calling card,” said Chard. “You can waver on offense if the shots aren’t falling or you don’t have fluidity, but if you bring defense to every game, you kind of stick around, no matter what.”

Zayn Murdoch paced the Colts in the final, sinking an even 20 points while grade 10 sensation Gevin Grisdale chipped in with 11, a bit of a top-heavy scorecard compared to a typical Korah encounter.

“Our team plays best when everyone scores 15 points,” said Chard. “When we’re sharing the ball like that, our offense is solid.”

Acknowledging that he was looking to the Mitch Lalonde Memorial Tournament as something of a NOSSA gauge – “we wanted to see where we were at in the north” – Chard is aware that his team’s pathway to OFSAA still features a couple of notable hurdles.

“Lo-Ellen is definitely the powerhouse of the north,” he said. “We know that they are on top of the mountain and we’ve been kind of doing things to get up there as well and give them a good shot. And there’s tons of talent in North Bay as well.”

Boasting an undefeated record and fresh off a tournament win in North Bay, the Espanola juniors were paced by a 20 point effort from captain and point guard Liam Houle, with Carter McLennan adding another 14 points to the mix.

“Coming from a small town like Espanola, just coming in to compete with the city teams is a lot of fun,” noted Spartans’ head coach Josh Brohart. “The effort and determination that our kids played with was super awesome. They just work so hard and are super disciplined on defense.”

“It’s a lot of fun working with them.”

Like most basketball teams that enjoy success, the Spartans rely on an inside-outside combination to balance their attack, with Liam Houle and Judah Brohart key in their respective roles.

“Liam really controls the floor for us,” stressed coach Brohart. “He’s a leader for us. He’s kind of that voice of reason for the rest of our players out there. Judah was a dominant force on rebounds and inside with picks and rolls for us.”

Having beaten Superior Heights (59-23), St Charles College (69-56) and Horizon (70-47) en route to the final, O’Gorman surged to a ten point lead early in the contest, the first time all year that Espanola has trailed.

“To see them respond to that was awesome,” said (coach) Brohart. “O’Gorman has a bunch of really good shooters. We had to make sure that we closed out on them, to make sure that they didn’t take off on us.”

The Senior B bragging rights would also go the way of the Espanola Spartans, 79-58 winners over Horizon with the Thériault Flames (Timmins) taking the Senior C crown with a 35-21 win over the Macdonald-Cartier Panthères. Peyton Daigle netted 19 points for the winners, with Aziz Aissa countering with an even dozen for ESMC.

The sibling tandem of Félix (15 points) and Samuel Aubin (10) helped to power the Hanmer Sabres to a D Flight banner as the Valley reps downed the Elliot Lake Atoms 57-33 (Evan Brisebois with 9 for EL).

The St Charles College Cardinals stopped the St Benedict Bears 60-49 in the Junior B Flight final while the Bishop Carter Gators also returned to Hanmer with a little extra hardware, capturing the Junior C medals thanks to a 68-28 win over Lasalle as the one-two punch of Bently Szwed (29) and Gillis O’Daiskey (16) led the charge.

Finally, Daniel Briand (13) and Nik Joseph (12) were front and centre for the Superior Heights Steelhawks, D Flight champions, taking down O’Gorman #2 48-30 late Saturday afternoon on Sudbury.