Edmonton’s St. FX defeats Saskatoon’s Holy Cross to win 55th BRIT

For the second consecutive season, the Holy Cross Crusaders from Saskatoon came up one game short of winning a Bedford Road Invitational Tournament (BRIT) championship.

After falling to its arch-rivals from Walter Murray Collegiate in 2024, the Crusaders lost 62-53 to St. Francis Xavier High School (St. FX) out of Edmonton. It’s the second time St. FX has won the BRIT.

The Crusaders got off to a hot start in the championship game, leading 13-4 after the first quarter.

After what seemed like some nerves for St. FX in the opening frame, the team eventually found its shooting rhythm in the second quarter and put up 22 points to give it a 26-22 heading into halftime.

St. FX didn’t look back after that point and never trailed in the second half – helping lead it to the 62-53 victory.

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Although his team came up short for a second straight year at BRIT, Crusaders head coach Josh Rutten was happy with the effort he saw out of his team this weekend.

“I’m really proud of my guys. Some things didn’t go away our way tonight. I don’t think we played our best offensive basketball, but I didn’t think our level of compete was ever in question,” Rutten said.

“I thought our guys worked hard all three games in this tournament. I thought they battled as hard as they could and really left it all on the floor. So at the end of the day, I’m really proud of their effort and how hard they worked and really dedicated themselves to this tournament and this weekend.”

Rutten felt the size of the St. FX players caused the Crusaders some trouble while on the offensive side of the ball.

“They had some big, strong guys and they just had more shots than us. They hit a couple threes,” Rutten explained.

“I didn’t think it was our best offensive game and while we competed defensively, we couldn’t really match some of their scoring at times and a couple of their runs.”

Rutten feels this tournament was a good test for his group and can be used as a measuring stick to see where his team is at.

“Whenever you come to BRIT, you know you’re going to face the top teams in western Canada. It’s a good measuring stick playing St. FX like this – they’re ranked number two in Alberta and a really competitive basketball team,” he said.

“It shows us we’re right there with some of those teams in western Canada. We just need to build on this performance this weekend – work on the things we need to work on – but take away the positives as well and keep striving for our end goal – which is to be in the mix for a city and provincial championship in March.”

On the other side of the court, St. FX head coach Brad Farish was proud of his team’s effort.

“Obviously, a super slow start for us. Their pressure bothered us more. Defensively we did a good job, so we were able to stay in it defensively while we kind of figured out our offense and then just kind of carried that on through till the end,” he explained.

The victory on Saturday night was also a long time waiting for Farish as in 2011 he competed in BRIT as a player on a team from Ottawa. His team lost in the semi-final.

“We’re looking at history on the board there. So it means a lot to us to be able to put our name up there for a second time as a school from out of province,” Farish said. “I know a lot of my (old) teammates are jealous that I’m back here and get to experience it and get to be a part of this now very regularly, rather than just a one-off.”

The Walter Murray Marauders were held off the podium this year at BRIT, after dropping the bronze medal game 75-68 to West Vancouver.

Walter Murray were the defending BRIT champions heading into Saturday night, but lost 78-68 to St. FX earlier in the day in the semi-final.

Marauders head coach Scott Hawley admitted it was a long day and quick turnaround for his group, but was happy with what he saw.

“We just told the guys in there that we’re really proud of them and the effort they put forward. They worked hard, we had guys cramping up and they were giving it their all,” Hawley said.

“That team was really good. Sometimes even if you work hard, you don’t get you don’t get the results you want, but definitely proud of our guys’ effort for sure.”

Hawley feels this was tournament was a good learning experience for his group.

“Last year, we were the only team to win BRIT, win cities and provincials. We were telling the guys that there’s a lot of city and provincial champions that didn’t win this tournament that came before them. I’ve been around this tournament a long time, and one thing that I’ve seen over and over and over again is how teams will use this weekend to propel themselves to bigger and better things,” Hawley explained.

“We can’t mimic that in practice what we just got and so we just got a really good intense weekend of work that we’re hoping is going to really develop a lot of these guys who haven’t had these experiences before and we’re hoping we can use it as a springboard for the second half of our season,” he added.