Royals make history with OFSAA girls’ hoops crown
The Lajeunesse Royals and Kennedy Clippers completed historic runs at OFSAA.
The Royals claimed the first girls’ team gold medal in school history by capturing the OFSAA basketball A title in Welland.
“Our first gold medal ever,” said Royals forward Olivia Scott, 17. “We’ve had some strong teams, but this year we put it all together. This was our mountain and we talked about climbing to the top. We made it happen.”
Kennedy earned the first girls’ team OFSAA medal in school history with a silver-medal performance at the AA championship in Kingsville. “It’s the first OFSAA medal for a Kennedy girls’ team,” Clippers head coach Stephen Silvaggio
said. “They should be proud of their accomplishment.”
The No. 2-seeded Royals, who took the silver medal at last year’s event, claimed the gold medal with a 40-26 win over No. 4 Bresleau Woodland Christian, which had upset No. 1 seed and two-time defending champion Timmins O’gorman in the semifinals.
“I could tell from their eyes in the pre-game speech that they were so hungry for that gold medal,” Royals head coach Linda Carriere said of her team.
Lajeunesse held Woodland to 11 points in the first half and opened a 13-point lead at the break. Ashanti Christian led the offence with 20 points and Jamiliah Christian finished with 13. “This year it wasn’t just on the court,” said Scott, who had eight points in the final. “In that one year, we’ve just become more of a family. Off the court translated on the court. It’s been a long four years and a lot of work and it’s the greatest feeling and I get to share it with my best friends. It’s an amazing feeling because I get to share it.”
Lajeunesse reached the final with a tough 28-21 win over host and No. 3 seed Welland Jean Vanier in the semifinals.
“Our first three games, we didn’t play all that good, but we played the whole bench and that makes a bit of a difference,” Carriere said. “They showed up to play when it was time to play.”
But it was a frustrating end for the Clippers in a 61-58 loss in the AA final against No. 1 seed Kingston Frontenac. “I’m disappointed in the way the game ended,” Silvaggio said, adding, “I’m very happy with the way the girls kept fighting.”
Trailing by a point with two minutes to play, a Kennedy defender tried to step around a Frontenac player looking to steal. Rather than a foul, the Kennedy player was handed an unsportsmanlike call. Frontenac hit the two free throws and was given possession and scored again to open a fivepoint lead.
Alisha Murray had 22 points for Kennedy in the final, Maddy Bishop finished with 15 points and Nneke Lockhart had 11 points.