LAMELINE, NL – It reads like an Underdog Story because at the grassroots that’s exactly what it is. We all love those heartwarming movies where a know nothing team without any expectations triumphs and become champions. That being the story of the St Joseph’s Academy Jaguars of Lamaline.
As a writer and a person directly involved in this story I can, from a first-hand perspective, tell you it was an amazing climb to the top.
I moved from the Avalon Peninsula back to my home town on the Burin Peninsula abruptly, and in doing so I approached the coach of the senior team who is also a childhood friend and asked him if he could start a Grade 9 team.
He was a apprehensive at first as our school has little more than 70 people from grade K through 12 so we were very limited with our prospects. Then there was the time commitment. Something there was not a lot of as he was the to Go-To guy for just about every sport at the school. Nonetheless the team was put together and they travelled to Avondale for the provincial Grade 9 D tournament.
Adding to the poor odds was the fact that this team never ever had played in any NLBA provincial tournament before and most of the boys on this team had very little basketball experience.
Throughout the tournament playing much more historically known basketball schools as Clarenville, Laval of Placentia, Avondale and Amalgamated from Bay Roberts they prevailed and exceeded all expectations until finally meeting Brookside Intermediate of Portugal Cove – St Phillips in the Provincial Championship game.
At the end, at the final buzzer, St Joseph’s Academy Jaguars had done something no other team from that school had done before, they won the very first NLBA provincial banner to ever hang on the walls at school, which is all the more impressive considering that just a few weeks earlier their senior high team hosted and won the SSNL 1A provincial boys basketball championship which was the first basketball provincial banner ever won by that school in its history.
It was a year of a lot of firsts for this small school of just over 70 in the small town of Lamaline Newfoundland
