NBIAA Final 12
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AA Boy’s Championship Preview

Republished with permission of NB Hoops News

Welcome to the Boys AA Championship game for 2019-2020. The defending champs are back but so is a perennial powerhouse that took a hiatus from AA last season to try their hand at the AAA ranks. Under the bright lights of TD Station who will reign supreme when the Tantramar Titans and the Woodstock Thunder square off for all the marbles in this year’s Final game of the NBIAA Final Twelve?

Saturday evening’s AA Championship will see the #2 ranked Tantramar Regional Titans go head to head with the #1 ranked Woodstock High Thunder. The Titans are the defending champions and will look to repeat and bring home the banner to Sackville for the 8th time in school history. Woodstock has won 3 of the last 6 and 11 overall. They are looking to make it an even dozen.

The Titans are led by their All-Star Point Guard Seamus Lyon. Lyon has a few great shooting teammates to support him at the Station as well. 6 guys with TD Station experience will be huge for Tantramar. For Woodstock, they will look to their two All-Stars to show them the way. Daniel Hawkes and Alex Vadureanu will carry that weight, but they too have plenty of firepower supporting them up and down that lineup.

This is the only Final 12 match-up where the two teams have not played head to head this season. Will that mean a tentative start to feel each other out or do they just come out with hard pressure to try the shock and awe approach? Either way, their first meeting of the year could not be any bigger than this.

The Tantramar Regional High School Titans play out of the East. The Titans were 4 – 0 on the season to finish in first place. Tantramar enjoyed a lot of home cooking in the playoffs as they hosted the North East Regional and then the North East Sectional. In the Regional Semi-final, they played Sugarloaf Senior High Bruins. The Titans won that game 84 – 59. In the Regional final, they get Eastern division rival and #10 ranked JMA Armstrong and won 87 – 66 for 1st in the North East and the right to host Sectionals last weekend. The Sectional Semi-final would have Tantramar and #5 ranked Carleton North battle and it was the boys from the marsh with the convincing 75 – 44 win. The Titans were now one win away from getting back to TD Station. #8 ranked Bathurst would be their opponent. Bathurst just shocked Ecole Sainte-Anne the day before and was looking for two upsets in a row but Tantramar would have something to say about that. The Titans win 86 – 52 and punched their ticket to the Final Twelve.

The #1 Ranked Woodstock Thunder plays out of the Western League. They put up a 6 – 0 record to take first place in the West. Just like Tantramar, Woodstock also gave themselves an advantage by hosting both the Regionals and Sectionals for the South West. Woodstock got their postseason started in the Regional Semi-final game with their Carleton County rivals from Carleton North. Woodstock wins 64 – 40 and move on to the Regional final game vs Ecole Saint-Anne. Woodstock had very little trouble in taking out Les Castor 83 – 56. Woodstock takes first seed in the south West Regional tournament and would host the South West Sectional last weekend. The Sectional Semi-final would have Woodstock playing Sugarloaf Senior. The Thunder handled the Bruins with ease, taking the game 99 – 52. Woodstock was now one game away from returning to TD Station for the first time in two years and memories of that agonizing triple-overtime loss to the Rothesay High Red Hawks. The Fundy High Mariners were all that stood in the way. No problem, Thunder win 74 – 52 and will now give themselves the chance to take it all the way on the biggest stage.

The finale of the 2019-2020 NBIAA Final 12 promises to give us all the excitement of a heavyweight title bout. You better stick around to see this one plays out.

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