Article By: Rob MasseyGUELPH — Bishop Macdonell might be the girls' factory of District 10 basketball play.
That could be put to the test this year as the defending champion Celtics are a young squad by high school senior terms.
"We're full of green bananas. That's probably the best way to put it," Bishop Mac coach Karen Bremner said after the Celtics opened their season with a 33-16 victory over the short-staffed Centennial Spartans Tuesday at Bishop Mac. "We're extremely young. We lost a lot of really talented kids, but the nice thing about coaching at BM is that there's always something coming through the pipeline."
Bishop Mac won the D10 title last year with a 44-37 victory over Lourdes in the final.
"We're young and we're going to go through some growing pains, but the expectations haven't changed from last year," Bremner said.
As is usually the case early in the season, Tuesday's opener was a little disjointed at times. The hosts led 7-3 at the end of the first quarter, 14-10 at the half and 21-13 after the third quarter before pulling away in the final quarter.
"It's always like that when you play the first game of the season," Bremner said. "It's usually a mess and to compound things, we do have players playing up (from junior) and there is the stigma of playing senior basketball. They were a little nervous, but I thought they did well."
The win was the 18th consecutive in league play for the Celtics. They won all 14 league games last season and the final three of the 2011 campaign.
Jessica Morris collected nine points for the Bishop Mac while Rebecca Morris had seven and Madison Martinez five. Six players had two points apiece.
Emma Cain led all scorers with 10 points for Centennial while Elizabeth Newman hit for two and the other four players suited up for the game had one point apiece.
Best news for the Spartans was the no one was hurt in the game. They were missing four players — three injured and one ill.
