Article By: Darryl G. SmartThe St. John's College Green Eagles just wouldn't go away.
Having lost both regular season meetings to the North Park Collegiate Trojans and losing Game 1 of the Brant County junior girls basketball final last week, the deck seemed stacked against the two-time defending champs.
Someone forgot to tell the Green Eagles.
A 16-point fourth quarter outburst led the Green Eagles to a 39-33 win Monday night over the Trojans to give them a third-consecutive BCSSAA title.
"It's been a long road," Green Eagles' Leah Coon said.
"It's about all of the hard work and it's great that it's paid off. It was a bit of a relief because we knew we finally did it. And we're really happy to win this."
"We really wanted to win this," teammate Jen Garner said.
Coon and Garner said the tradition of winning at SJC was something that really inspired them.
"The school has had a pretty good winning streak and we wanted to continue that," Coon said. "We knew we were the Grade 10s and had to be the leaders."
"It's rewarding to win it as a Grade 10," Garner said. "We're glad that we were able to do it again when it was our turn to take on the responsibility of leading the team."
And when the final buzzer went, they finally realized what they set out to accomplish despite lots of adversity.
"It was a nerve racking game," Garner said. "We knew we could beat them all season but just couldn't do it. In the last two games we showed we can. We knew we wanted to win this. We told each other we could and to do it feels great."
While Rebecca Mckinnon scored six points to lead the fourth quarter rally, Garner added four, including a three-pointer in the first minute to give her team a 26-24 lead.
"We had to really pump each other up," Coon said of what was said before the fourth quarter. "We knew we could do it. We were so close in the regular season games. We just had to go out hard."
And that's exactly what the Green Eagles did, as they neutralized the duo of Halle Sitarski and Gabrielle Marton to only six points in the fourth quarter.
"We definitely figured out our defence and figured out how to shut them down," Coon said.
"They've got amazing post players, so we had to figure out how to shut them down. We were able to limit them and that's a huge reason why we won."
Next up for the Green Eagles is the Central Western Ontario Secondary Schools Association AAAA championships at Centre Wellington District High School in Fergus starting Friday.
Despite the loss, the Trojans also get a shot at a CWOSSA title, with the AAA championships beginning Friday at NPC and Pauline Johnson Collegiate.
"It's a learning experience and we want to come back and win CWOSSA now," Trojans' Sarah Minutillo said. "They just came to play. We played scared and didn't give it our all. They did the little things that cost us points.
"We have practice the next couple of days and we're going to refocus," she said. "I think things will change at CWOSSA."
Retrieved From: http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/2012/11/12/junior-eagles-battle-for-championship
