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| Junior Lourdes Crusaders - CWOSSA Champs |
GUELPH — It's been more than a decade since a team outside of Guelph has won a CWOSSA AA girls' basketball championship.
The Guelph domination continued Thursday as the Bishop Macdonell Celtics grabbed the senior title and the Lourdes Crusaders took junior honours in finals at Bishop Mac.
In senior, the Celtics downed the Southwood Sabres of Cambridge for the second time in less than 24 hours. Bishop Mac took the final 53-32 to extend their streak of CWOSSA championship titles to 10.
"The goal is always to win," Bishop Mac coach Karen Bremner said. "It's really nice and convenient that it's 10 in a row. I think that's a dynasty now, isn't it?"
Bremner actually played on the Guelph teams that started both the junior and senior streaks, as she was a member of the Bishop Mac teams that won the junior title in 2002 and the senior title in 2003. The junior title win was the first CWOSSA championship for Bishop Mac at its current location.
The last team other than Bishop Mac to win the senior championship was the Monsignor Doyle Mustangs of Cambridge in 2003. The Mustangs compete in AAA now.
The Celtics did learn a few things about Southwood in their 45-32 victory in pool play Wednesday night.
"We could definitely pinpoint key players," Rebecca Morris said. "Their posts are very strong and we're kind of lacking in height, so we had to figure out how to stop them without fouling really bad. We had to definitely strategize against them today."
After Southwood scored the first four points of the senior final, the hosts went on an 11-point run before the Sabres netted another basket in the final minute of the first quarter.
The Celtics were ahead 11-6 at the end of the first quarter, 26-13 at the half and 39-25 after the third quarter.
Jessica Morris led Bishop Mac with 12 points while Rebecca Morris had 10, Rachael DiGravio seven, Jessica Burke six, Ellie Young five, Christine Sullivan four, Marcelo Gadzinska three and Danielle Driscoll, Maddy Martinez and Johanna DeJong two apiece.
Taylor White had 23 for Southwood and Megan Cole netted nine.
The Celtics had four players hit double figures in a 57-36 win over the Owen Sound CVI Falcons in the semifinals.
Young collected 12 points and was followed by Driscoll and Jessica Morris at 11 apiece, Rebecca Morris at 10, Burke at five and Christine Sullivan and DeJong at four apiece.
Brooke Whetstone had 20 points for Owen Sound CVI.
This season was a little different for the Celtics as they're a little younger than normal. That meant the championship game wins weren't by as many points as in years past — a 21-point win instead of more than 30.
"This year CWOSSA is more competitive, period," Bremner said. "But there's growth (for the Celtics) and there's been growth all year. I said at the beginning of the year we're full of green bananas and we're trying to tap all that potential. Some days it works, and some days, not so much."
The win gives the Celtics a berth in the OFSAA provincial AA championship tournament at Windsor Nov. 21-23.
"We have two and a half practices (before the OFSAA tournament)," Bremner said. "It'll be a lot of shooting. Some kids are banged up so we'll take care of some injuries."
"We definitely have to rest up and get healthy," Rebecca Morris said. "We have to keep practising plays and a lot of shooting. (There probably won't be) a lot of conditioning because we're probably in the peak condition we can be. Just a lot of run-through plays, shooting and trying to stay healthy."
The CWOSSA AA junior tournament marked the end of the season for its six participants. Lourdes had little trouble extending the Guelph title-winning streak to 11 with a 45-17 victory over the Delhi Raiders.
"We have such a great group of girls that I'm sad that it ends right now," Lourdes coach Mike O'Rourke said. "The girls are asking why junior OFSAA doesn't exist as they really want the season to continue, which speaks to how well they get along and how well they work together."
As in senior, the last non-Guelph team to win the title was Monsignor Doyle of Cambridge in 2002.
Since then, either Lourdes (six times) or Bishop Mac (five times) has won the championship match.
"As much as we compete with BM, when we're not in it, we cheer for BM and we want them to do well," O'Rourke said. "If we weren't in it, we'd want BM to do well. We're rivals, but we're also compatriots when it comes to CWOSSA. There are a lot of strong basketball players in Guelph and a lot of strong competition in D10 which helps us prepare for this."
The highlight of the final for Delhi might have been scoring the game's first basket. After that it was all Lourdes as the Crusaders led 17-4 at the end of the first quarter, 34-8 at the half and 38-13 after the third quarter.
Rainey Psenicka had 11 points for the Crusaders and was followed by Hannah McIntosh with 10, Natasha Martinez with six, Jenna Vettoretto with five, Krysta Peddle and Brin Krueger with four apiece, Maddy McIntosh and Liz Endicott with two each and Catherine Edwins with one. Sam Sultan started and had a strong outing on defence.
Tessa Hamilton had eight points for Delhi.
The semifinal was no contest as the Crusaders held the Kincardine Knights to a single in the first three quarters on their way to a 35-7 victory.
Lourdes led 12-1 after the first quarter, 21-1 after the second and 27-1 after the third.
Psenicka led the Crusaders with nine points while Maddy McIntosh had seven, Krueger five, Vettoretto and Hannah McIntosh four each and Peddle, Endicott and Martinez two apiece.
Bethany Wilker had four for Kincardine.
