Article By: Gavin Crites
For a second straight year the North Park Collegiate Trojans are senior girls' basketball AAA CWOSSA champions.
After surviving a scare in their semi final match up, the Trojans went on to beat Cambridge's Preston High School 53-36 in the finals held at Jacob Hespeler Secondary School in Cambridge Saturday.
In their semi final game versus Guelph's St James Secondary School, North Park was down by 11 points in the first half before shutting St. James down in the third and final quarters. The Trojans allowed a total of only six points in the second half and held St. James to zero points in the third quarter.
"They shot the lights out on us in the first half," North Park coach Andrea Hawkins said of St. James.
Hawkins added they weren't going to let that "scare" happen again and made sure to come out strong early in the finals versus Preston.
North Park established an 18-point lead by half time.
Hawkins credited the team's smart play and great decision making for their success.
"I think they were prepared physically, mentally and emotionally," Hawkins said. "They were ready for this. It was never an issue."
Hawkins also credited the play of point guard Reo Roland, who led North Park in scoring with 15 points in the finals game.
"Reo Roland played 32 minutes for me every single game and she was phenomenal," Hawkins said. "She never stopped. And she never looked tired."
"In the last month, she's really stepped up her game. She's shown she's a true leader."
Allison Delorenzi and Hayley Welsh each added 11 points for North Park.
This is a third CWOSSA final appearance for North Park's grade twelve players. Winning the championship again this year was definitely a goal for the team this season said Hawkins, while looking for at least a top four finish at OFSAA as well.
"We've spent the whole season kind of preparing for this and everything we've done up until now has been because of CWOSSA and OFSAA," Hawkins said.
"There's nothing we really need to change at this point. We just got to execute and hope the ball goes in the basket for us and if it does, I think good things can happen."
Hawkins mentions St. Mary's Catholic Secondary School from Hamilton and Holy Cross Catholic Secondary School from Kingston as some of top teams they'll be seeing at OFSAA.
"The North Park girls I was hoping for actually showed up this weekend," Hawkins said.
"It's nice because this weekend we started to click again," she added of her North Park team, which seems to be peaking at the right moment.
"I think we're someone that people need to be afraid of (at OFSAA)," she added.
The AAA OFSAA tournament is being held in Kingston, ON. North Park will play their first game the morning of Thursday Nov. 24.
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