Early-Season Senior Round-Up: Despite Missing Pieces, Green Eagles Still Solid

Despite losing large chunks of last year's OFSAA Silver-Medal winning roster to graduation/prep schools, the St. John's Green Eagles again appear to still be one of the favourites for the CWOSSA "AAA" Senior Girls' title.

The Green Eagles dropped the finale of their home tournament last weekend to Resurrection CSS -- albeit in a game where both teams were missing a couple of key players.


This past weekend, in Guelph, the Green Eagles took the title of the Centennial Invational, a tournament that included some other CWOSSA contenders, including WCSSAA schools SJAM and Waterloo-Oxford.


The Crusaders are off to an unbeaten start in the WCSSAA league, although it's clear that it could be one of the more wide-open years in recent memory.  The aforementioned Highlanders, WCI (who despite a youthful roster have a 1-point win over SJAM to their credit), Bluevale and Grand River (who played a 2OT game that BCI won) are all in the mix, along with the Galt Ghosts, who return several key players from last year's team, including Beth Fleming.


Back to St. John's, the Green Eagles are among a quadrant of teams from a very competitive BCSSAA league that all could compete for a league and playoff title.  While the Green Eagles appear to have the inside lane, the gap isn't as wide as it's been in previous years with teams like Brantford CI, North Park and Assumption all in the mix.


The Resurrection Phoenix have gotten off to an undefeated start in District 8, and despite losing Jama Bin-Edward to Prep School, should still have the talent needed to win that league.  Rez's first three games in league play have seen them outscore their opponents by a combined margin of 169-36.


The final "major conference", the D10 league, also sees a familiar name at the top.  The Bishop Mac Celtics, like many of the other top schools, are dealing with their own prep school losses, but have reeled off three consecutive wins to start the season by a 168-62 score.  Fellow "AA" school Lourdes is also undefeated, while on the "AAA" side, JF Ross and Centennial are currently leading the way with 2-2 marks.