Colts Athletics had its most successful weekend in program history. Centennial hosted the OCAA Badminton Championships over a two-day tournament from February 17th and 18th. In addition to the tournament the Colts hosted Men's Basketball Playoff Qualifier against the Fanshawe Falcons and a Men's Volleyball Playoff Quater-final against the St. Clair Saints.
The results of this were remarkable for Centennial as a whole. Colts Roney Roy & Ranjana Bhatt took home silver in Mixed Doubles having faced a gauntlet of fierce competitors. Centennials Prarthana Deuba and would with a silver in Women's Singles. Jasmine Lau pulled out a bronze in Women's Singles and Rini Chiu and Carolyn Luk won bronze. The efforts of Bhatt, Deuba, Lau, Chiu and Luk netted the Colts their first-ever Women's Provincial Title. Colin Zhou won gold once again and became the first Colt in almost 20 years to back-to-back as the Men's Singles Champion.
With Badminton Provincial's successful conclusion, Colts Nation shifted its attention to two intense playoff matchups on Sunday.
As the second seed in the East division, the Men's Volleyball team hosted their second home playoff match against third seed St.Clair, on the line a ticket to the final four and a spot in the OCAA Championship. It was an intense match that saw the Colts take the early lead before having to battle back from a 2-1 deficit to force a fifth set, where they came out on top in an absolute thriller. The final score, 25-23, 24-26, 19-25, 25-21, 15-12. With the win, the Men's Volleyball booked their ticket to London to face off against the best in the province. This will be the first time the Colts have made it this far since 1989. They play the defending OCAA champion Humber Hawks for a spot in the gold medal game on Friday, February 23, at 5:00 PM at Fanshawe College.
With Volleyball taking care of business, Basketball needed to do its job as the team hosted the Fanshawe Falcons in their round-of-16 playoff qualifier. Going into this game, it looked on paper to be a pretty even match-up with the Colts as a fourth seed and the Falcons as a fifth seed. Despite the Colts having a better regular season record, the West division is known to be more competitive from top to bottom, indicating this would be a close game.
Centennial started off scorching hot, leading after the first quarter 25-16. The Falcons would go on a small run in the second quarter to bring the Colt's lead down to 6. At the half, the score was 44-37 thanks to a rock-steady all-star performance from Husam Shallo, who finished with a game-high 27 points. The Colts, a notoriously slow 3rd quarter team, came out of half-time and watched their lead briefly evaporate before putting on the gas and running away with the 86-73 victory. A remarkable turnaround for a team that has been sub .500 record for the last three years, this was also the first home playoff game the Colts have hosted and won in over 8 years.
Centennial hits the road to play the defending champion St. Clair Saints on Saturday, February 24, at 6:00 PM for a chance to book their ticket to the Basketball Championship.
By Anthony Santia