Article By: Vincent Ball The St. John's College Green Eagles senior girls' basketball team used tenacious defence and a balanced scoring attack to capture the Brant County title for the ninth time.
The Green Eagles beat the Brantford Collegiate Mustangs 71-29 to win the best-of-three series in two games straight.
"It's a great feeling," said Kendra Van Leeuwen who scored 16 points for the Green Eagles. "It's nice to see how all of our hard work all season paid off."
But, she said, the competition will be tough next week as the team heads to CWOSSA.
For Megan Thompson, it was her fifth Brant County championship. The feeling of winning the title never gets old, she said.
"It's something that I get to share with the team and it feels great," she said.
"Next week, when we play at CWOSSA we have to keep up our intensity, keep working together as a team and keep up our energy."
The Green Eagles played with intensity throughout Game 1 Tuesday and kept it up in Game 2 on Thursday, Maddi Cohoon said.
The only negative about the game was that Erin Dubois got hurt when she went down hard to the floor after driving to the hoop.
The Green Eagles got outstanding performances from Van Leeuwen and Thompson, who each hit for 16 points. Dubois got nine.
The Green Eagles were hungry for another Brant County championship and came out firing on all cyclinders right from the opening tip. With their full court pressure forcing a lot of turnovers, the Green Eagles took an early 16-2 lead.
They got a nice baseline three-pointer by Van Leeuwen in the second quarter but it was really their ball movement and hard work on defence that drove their offence all game.
The Green Eagles led 61-23 after three and 46-17 at the half.
Still, while St. John's dominated the game, the Mustangs fought hard and had some good moments, too. Katie Cummings, who played most of the game, went to the floor a couple of times to force turnovers.
Summer Sakaluk worked exceptionally hard handling the ball under tremendous pressure by the Green Eagles' guards. Coren Madensky pulled down a couple of rebounds for the Mustangs.
Lexi Lancaster scored a three-point buzzer beater at the end of the first quarter and had another three-pointer in the fourth quarter. Sakaluk also scored a three pointer in the fourth quarter.
Still, there was no denying the intensity of the Green Eagles.
They hustled all over the court all game and could score inside as well as outside with some long-range shots. Erin Dubois sunk a terrific three-pointer with just under three minutes left in the half and she was followed by Thompson who scored a layup following a turnover.
The Mustangs were led in scoring by Sakaluk with 13 and Lancaster with 8.
The members of the Green Eagles winning team include Alex Girardi, Jen Garner, Leah Coon, Lauren De Montmorency, Sam Dupont, Alaina McMillan and Ashley Derks. They are coached by Matt Lynch and Steve Van Leeuwen.
Retrieved From: http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/2014/11/06/girls-basketball-live-blog
