The St Francis “A” team, comprised of grade 8 students at the school, continues to pile up the hardware within the school’s trophy case as a very skilled group of young athletes develop under the tutelage of coach and teacher Brendan Bradley.

The squad combines an array of mixed skills, from the vision and ball handling ability of point guard Nico Presot, to the pure athletic scoring talents of Kordell Simmonds and Chase Pressacco, topped off with an unrelenting defense, this team can beat you in many ways.

“They’re fun and they’re competitive – and they also understand that this is the last year at Francis,” said coach Bradley after a recent practice. “We want to cap that legacy, to be that final St Francis team and really do St Francis proud.”

Playing on the hardcourt since the age of three, Simmonds is part of a large core of this team which also competed together, almost entirely, as a grade seven unit last year. “We know everyone’s strengths and weaknesses on the court, so we know that it’s an advantage to us,” said Simmonds.

Attending a development camp at Humber College last summer allowed the keen teenager to work not only on his shooting, but all aspects of his game. “There were a lot of tall guys there, so I had to learn to play really good defense to shut them down,” he said.

Watch just one St Francis game and it becomes clear that Presot is a natural at running the offense, something that he maintains is driven by a similar role in two different sports.

“In soccer, I play center midfield and can kind of control the play from there, and in basketball, I play point guard and control the play” said Presot, who is likely to join Simmonds at St Benedict’s next year.

It’s borne of a skill-set that the well-spoken grade 8 student has come to acknowledge as a key component to his game. “I have to have very good vision to see where everyone is, to get them the ball if they’re open.”

“Normally my teammates are really good for having their hands out to let me know where they are going when they’re cutting,” added Presot. Benefitting from this glut of talent is a former St Charles College Cardinal graduate, who knows that he has already made some adjustments as he learns his trade running the bench.

“When you come in right off the bat, you sometimes forget that they are aged 12 and 13,” said Bradley. “About halfway through my first season, I thought I had better take a step back and just work on some of the basics.”

With raw skills already there, Bradley expanded his team’s understanding of the basic components of running an offense, moving without the ball, and moving with a purpose.

Still, it soon kicked in that the offense was only half the battle. “I’ve become much more defensive first, thinking now that we don’t have to score too many points as long as we stop them from scoring very many,” he said.

Although his team has already accomplished a great deal, the energetic young teacher is sure to move the bar forward. “We understand that any team can have a great game, and any team can have a terrible game, so we have to keep working on our strengths and building especially on our weaknesses.”.

Just the kind of game plan that would make several decades of St Francis basketball talent proud.