For the first time in the school's history, we can scratch "win a WCSSAA Senior Girls' basketball championship" off of Waterloo-Oxford's "to do" list.The Crusaders capped a perfect 15-0 WCSSAA regular season & playoff run by holding off the Jacob Hespeler Hawks, 43-37, yesterday evening in Cambridge.
As usual, the Crusaders were led by their star PG, Maddy Horst, who verged on triple-double territory by finishing with 17 points, 8 rebounds, and 7 assists. However, it was the timely fast-break contributions of their first sub off the bench, G/F Libby Brenneman, that keyed the Crusader win.
Brenneman finished with 13 points, including two back-to-back fastbreak lay-ups late in both halves.
Her first pair of layups, about 30 seconds apart, gave the Crusaders a 4-point advantage with about 2:00 to go in the first half (they'd go on to lead 22-17 at half).
The second pair? Even bigger.
With the Crusaders clinging to a 32-31 edge, and around four minutes to go, Brenneman was able to beat the Jacob Hespeler defense down the court two consecutive times for layups and in the process give some breathing-room to the Crusaders (36-31).
She would go on to complete the Waterloo-Oxford scoring, and end any chance of a Jacob Hespeler comeback by hitting another lay-up and adding the "and one" free-throw with 37.3 seconds to go (42-33).
Overall, it was a very entertaining and well played game. Both teams displayed great ball movement, and it resulted in very high assisted FG percentages. If you can top 50% in a high school game, you're doing really well, and both teams did --- Waterloo-Oxford had 10 assists on 19 made field goals, while the Hawks had 13 assists on 18 field goal makes.
As far as individual statistics went, Horst led the Crusaders with the aforementioned 17 points, 8 rebounds, and 7 assists, while Brenneman put home 13 points on a very efficient 6-of-9 from the floor.
Horst had a couple of huge "follow-up" rebounds and putbacks in the fourth quarter, starting with one off of a missed fastbreak lay-up with 6:30 to go.
Rounding out the WODSS scoresheet were contributions from Kyla Burrough (6 points + 7 rebounds), Tess Pettigrew (5), and Alisha Glendinning (2).
Jacob Hespeler's five starters all scored at least six points, with Courtney Wright leading the way (13 points + 8 rebounds). The others were Candice Wright (6 points + 10 rebounds), Jasmine Ramcharan (6 points + 5 rebounds + 5 assists), Sam Tonner (6 points + 7 rebounds + 4 assists), and Morgan Panabaker (6).
Ramcharan's performance was of note for the Hawks as she had a few clutch baskets down the stretch (while assisting on a couple others) despite noticeably limping through the effects of what appeared to be a leg cramp.
Both teams aren't done their seasons just yet, as they'll both advance to the "AAA" CWOSSA championship this weekend in Brantford. The 6-team event will feature pool play (two pools of three teams) followed by crossover semifinals.
Waterloo-Oxford will be in a pool with St. James and KCI, while Jacob Hespeler will play their two games against CWOSSA #1-ranked St. John's and Waterloo St. David.
Boxscore
WODSS 10-12-06-15 = 43
JHSS 06-11-08-12 = 37
Waterloo-Oxford
B. Payne 0-4 FG, 0-0 FT, 0 Reb, 0 Ast - 0 Pts.
M. Horst 7-23 FG, 3-5 FT, 8 Reb, 7 Ast - 17 Pts.
K. Burrough 3-5 FG, 0-0 FT, 7 Reb, 1 Ast - 6 Pts.
T. Pettigrew 2-9 FG, 1-2 FT, 2 Reb, 1 Ast - 5 Pts.
AGlendinning 1-5 FG, 0-0 FT, 4 Reb, 1 Ast - 2 Pts.
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L. Brenneman 6-9 FG, 1-1 FT, 0 Reb, 0 Ast - 13 Pts.
EGlendinning 0-0 FG, 0-0 FT, 1 Reb, 0 Ast - 0 Pts.
Field Goals: 19-54 (.352). Free-Throws: 5-8 (.625). Three-Point Goals: 0-7, .000 (M. Horst 0-4, B. Payne 0-3).
Jacob Hespeler
J. Ramcharan 3-11 FG, 0-0 FT, 5 Reb, 5 Ast - 6 Pts.
S. Tonner 3-8 FG, 0-0 FT, 7 Reb, 4 Ast - 6 Pts.
M. Panabaker 3-5 FG, 0-0 FT, 4 Reb, 1 Ast - 6 Pts.
Co. Wright 6-14 FG, 1-4 FT, 8 Reb, 1 Ast - 13 Pts.
Ca. Wright 3-10 FG, 0-0 FT, 10 Reb, 2 Ast - 6 Pts.
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N. Quiring 0-0 FG, 0-0 FT, 1 Reb, 0 Ast - 0 Pts.
Field Goals: 18-48 (.375). Free-Throws: 1-4 (.250). Three-Point Goals: 0-3, .000 (J. Ramcharan 0-3).
