With D8's junior semifinals having been completed on Monday, there's still the senior side of things to get sorted out before the league's finals go on Friday.Perhaps most importantly, the location of said finals will be determined today as the finals will be hosted by the highest remaining senior seed. St. Benedict (#1) will host unless they are defeated by #5 St. Mary's.
Here's a look at the two match-ups:
(5) St. Mary's at (1) St. Benedict
Regular Season: SBCSS 34-19
My Pick: SBCSS 42, SMHS 29
These teams only played once during the regular season, with the Saints picking up a win at St. Mary's.
Obviously, St. Benedict enters this one as the favourite, but they can't discount the fact that the Eagles have been rapidly improving, particularly on the offensive end. Yes, they were playing in the "B" Division, but the Eagles went from a team barely able to crack 20 points early in the season to a team scoring in the mid 30s consistently.
Brittany Gulic has been particularly impressive for St. Mary's, scoring 13 points or more in each of St. Mary's last three games. Obviously, containing her will be a key for the Saints, since the Eagles don't have a multitude of offensive weapons.
The Saints, meanwhile, will have to shake off a bit of rust as they've been off since last Wednesday (October 29th) due to their first-round bye. The Eagles can do themselves a favour by getting off to a decent start, which would put the pressure squarely on the favoured Saints.
Overall, I don't think this will be a blowout but the fact that the Saints have more offensive weapons (Afifa Salaad, Julia Mascarenhas, and Kayla Leusink in particular) should make the difference in this one.
(2) Resurrection vs. (3) St. David
Regular Season: RCSS 2-1 (33-28, 43-29; 20-37)
My Pick: RCSS 39, SDCSS 33
These two teams are quite familiar with each other, having met three times during the course of the season (once in the initial round-robin stage and then twice after the league was tiered).
Resurrection won the first two, while St. David was victorious in the last game --- although it was a meaningless contest as far as the standings were concerned and both teams gave their benches a fair amount of action in that one.
Rez's Celia McGlynn averaged 15.0 PPG against the Celtics this season (during the two meaningful games, anyways), while Megan Goar has also posted double-digit efforts for the Celts each time out. For St. David to be successful here, they're going to need a second scoring option to emerge as well --- in their two losses against Rez, their second-leading scorer posted 5 points both times.
Should be a good battle, and I'll give the slight edge to Rez at home.
