SIMCOE - The Delhi Raiders faced adversity for the first time all season, in the only game that ultimately mattered. So how did they react?
Like champions.
Delhi won a thrilling, heart-stopping NSSAA Junior Girls Basketball Championship Thursday night in Simcoe, beating the Holy Trinity Titans 38-37. The one-point victory was Delhi's tenth win on the Norfolk season, capping off a perfect run to the title.
“It was crazy,” Raiders forward Kelsey Ward said. “I couldn't have asked to be part of a better team than this. I thought for sure we were in trouble at one point, but our team never quit. We rallied and got the big plays when we needed down the stretch and pulled it off.”
Ward herself made the biggest play of the game. Holy Trinity grabbed its first lead of the entire contest when centre Megan Kalliokoski scored to make it 34-33 with 1:41 left. The Titans fended off Delhi for more than a minute, but with 28.2 seconds on the clock Ward took a pass in the lane and drove to the net for a bucket and the foul.
The Delhi side of the gymnasium erupted.
Ward hit her free throw to complete the three-point play, giving her a team-high 13 points on the night. A few seconds later, Delhi's Tessa Hamilton drained a jumper to make it 38-34, immediately thrusting her hands in the air with a mixture of satisfaction and joy.
This one wasn't quite over yet though. Following a free throw by Celine Atkins, Holy Trinity got the ball back with 6.3 seconds on the clock. A three-point attempt missed and Kalliokoski put away the rebound, but the horn sounded with Delhi still up by one.
The gold medals were going to the girls in gold.
“It was a great game, we trained really hard for this and came so close,” Holy Trinity point guard Hailey Boyd said. “Delhi is a really good team, the best all season, so we're really proud of how we hard we played them.”
The match started out like your typical Delhi contest, with the Raiders grabbing a 9-0 lead by the end of the first quarter. That lead grew to 13-0 before Holy Trinity finally hit a shot with 4:21 remaining in the first half.
That two points seemed to trigger something in the Titans. Their confidence began to grow, and the girls in black scored eight-straight to get right back in the game.
At the same time Holy Trinity was finding its footing, Delhi found itself facing trouble of a different sort — foul trouble. Hamilton, one of Delhi's leading scorers this season, had four fouls by halftime, and guard Emily Leger had another three, creating a serious hindrance to Delhi's hard-pressing, attacking style of defence.
The Raiders still held a 17-8 lead at the break, but the third quarter was not kind. Holy Trinity kept creeping closer by going inside, while Delhi started getting frustrated with traveling calls and missed shots. The lead was 28-22 by the end of the quarter, and it was only that large because Delhi hit two field goals in the final minute.
Owning a significant height advantage, the Titans kept attacking in the fourth with Kalliokoski, who scored a game-high 15 points. Forwards Filipa Leitao and Atkins were also a presence, combining for another 19 points.
Yet while every indicator was pointing towards Holy Trinity completing the big upset, Delhi never panicked. Oh, they got nervous, emotional and frustrated at times all right, but they always managed to pull it together at those critical moments, highlighted by the two big plays in the final minute.
“It was a nail-biter for sure,” said Delhi point guard Breanne Van deVen, who scored 11 points and made a couple huge shots in the fourth quarter. “Holy Trinity came on real strong and gave us everything we could handle, and we were getting a bit rattled — I was getting a bit rattled.
“We just had to be on when it mattered. Our passes had to be on, our rebounding had to be on, and our shots had to be on. It was a good challenge, a good championship game.”
The strong play of the Delhi bench, particularly forwards Brooklyn Hill and Brianne Dobias, cannot be overlooked either. Hill and Dobias were thrust into extended action with Hamilton on the bench for most of the second half, and they delivered under pressure.
Both teams now turn their attention towards CWOSSA. Delhi will play in the double-A tournament next Wednesday in Guelph, while the Titans have a play-in game for the triple-A tournament ahead.
No matter how things go next week, Thursday's game is one neither side is likely to soon forget. Delhi may have faced a tougher match than they ever expected, but that only made the victory taste that much sweeter.
Retrieved From: http://www.simcoereformer.ca/2012/11/08/junior-raiders-overcome-adversity-to-win-title
