The St. John's College Green Eagles senior girls may not have won gold medals at OFSAA this past weekend, but what they may have done is left their mark in high-school basketball history.
Heading into the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations Quad-A championships in Windsor this weekend as the 11th-ranked team in the 16-team tournament, the Eagles knocked off the No. 2, 3 and 6 seeds to get to the championship game.
In the final, St. John's came up just short of finishing on top, losing to the top-ranked St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School Knights 48-31.
"They don't think this has ever happened before," SJC coach Matt Lynch said of an 11th seeded team making it to the OFSAA Quad-A championship game by upsetting so many top-ranked teams.
"It was a pretty unbelievable weekend. It was just one win after another after another.
"What impressed me the most is that the girls believed they could win every game."
And why not?
For the past several years, the Green Eagles have gone into OFSAA with nothing but medals on their minds.
In 2008, the run began with silver medals at the AAA championship and after that, at the Quad-A level, SJC won the championship in 2009 and were fourth in 2010.
St. Thomas More, the 2004 OFSAA champs out of Hamilton, had lost three times this season -all to Hamilton's St. Mary, the OFSAA AAA champions from this past weekend.
St. Thomas More began the tournament with a win - defeating SJC 54-39.
"I think we came into that game a bit timid," said Lynch. "We battled back and had it within eight points in the third quarter."
After that game, St. Thomas More romped, beating each of its opponents by larger scores, including a 74-49 decision in the semifinals against Waterloo Collegiate Institute, which beat SJC for the Central Western Ontario Secondary School Association championship.
As for St. John's, it followed up its Thursday loss to the Vikings with a 36-26 win against sixth-seeded Pickering High School.
On Friday, in the quarterfinals, SJC beat No. 3 ranked Westdale Secondary School from Hamilton 54-48 before knocking off second-ranked Mother Teresa Catholic Secondary School out of London 45-42 in the semifinals.
In the final, although St. John's lost by a large margin, at one point things were quite close.
"I think it ended up being 17 points but halfway through the third quarter we got it to four points," said Lynch, whose assistant coaches included his brother, Mark, and Gina Tarantello.
"They hit some threes on us and they had a run after that."
Regardless, Lynch was pleased with his team's OFSAA effort.
"They were awesome, especially the leadership we got from Katie Polischuk," he said. "Every game we went into, every team knew they had to shut her down and she still scored.
"She had one of the best tournaments I've ever seen her play."
Polischuk, an outstanding talent who plays at the provincial level, had help from a strong group of Grade 12 players that included Charlotte Clark, Shawni Hnatiuk, Brooke Glover, Miranda Consorti and Shaina McDonald.
Also making strong contributions were Grade 11 players Lauren Dubois, Bridget Monkman, Megan Piette and Rebecca Dabor.
"The whole team was fearless," said Lynch. "They could care less what the other teams had."
Obviously some players will move on but this particular group has left a lasting impression.
"As a coach, I couldn't ask for anything more," said Lynch. "The girls came to practice with an excellent attitude. To be No. 2 in the province is outstanding.
"We're so happy and excited that the girls have done something that may never have been done before. We're thrilled for them."
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