Our Lady of Lourdes School in Raleigh celebrates breaking 60-year drought in boys and girls team championships

In the 90's, Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School girls basketball teams won back-to-back regional tournament championships. The boys' teams had to wait much longer.

John Cerqueira, the emcee for the big celebration, said the boys' team waited much longer to experience a victory in the Shamrock Tournament. He said, "1962 was over 60 years ago."

Boys' coach Lance Anthony took his teams to the Shamrock Final Four or Finals of the southeast regional middle school basketball tournament hosted in Charlotte. Like all coaches before Anthony, they fell just short of bringing home a title.

Anthony focused on the positive, "We served and we went out every day and it was 30 years of excitement and fun and we were family and we were a tight-knit group."

Last May, 2023, Anthony was conferred with one of the state's highest honors, "The Order of the Long Leaf Pine."

The retired Wake County Sheriff's Deputy devoted more time to the school's teams as the head coach and athletic director. His sons grew up in the sports culture. "The first thing we talk about is how the Lourdes' boys are going to do this year," said Anthony.

After decades of waiting, this was the year the school had long dreamed of. No school in their conference, in the history of the Shamrock Tournament, has won both the boys and girls tournament in the same year.

Win or lose, this was the year in which Lance Anthony had planned to retire, and as it turns out, he's leaving a winner.