In the wildcard game, the Winkler Garden Valley Zodiaks edged the Selkirk Lord Selkirk Royals 60-56. Jade Bragg led the Royals with 24. Alissa Enns added 20.
In the opening round: …………………………………………………… The 9th-seeded Winnipeg Dakota Lancers defeated the 8th-seeded Winnipeg Garden City Gophers 47-41 in overtime as Desiree Riel scored 15. Jessie Rosenbaum paced the Gophers with 17. The Gophers also included Melissa Handkamer. …………………………………………………… The 5th-seeded Brandon Crocus Plains Plainsmen dumped the 12th-seeded Winkler Garden Valley Kodiaks 62-46 as Tia Coulter scored 17. Kelby Loeppky paced the Kodiaks with 15. The Kodiaks also included Felicia Brown, Rowee Bayanin. …………………………………………………… The 11th-seeded Winnipeg St. Mary’s Academy Flames dumped the 6th-seeded Brandon Vincent Massey Vikings 53-44 as Sarah Dobie scored 18. Jen Dixon paced the Vikings with 14. The Vikings (coached by Dean Oakden) also included Rebecca Fund, Sarah Didychuk, Aimee Johnston, Hattie Melvin, Annie Pickering, Jill Giesbrecht, Ashlea Earl. …………………………………………………… The 10th-seeded Winnipeg Westwood Warriors edged the 7th-seeded Winnipeg Miles MacDonnell Buckeyes 52-47 as Lauren Anderson scored 24. Alyssa Mulvey led the Buckeyes with 14.
In the quarterfinals, the top-seeded Winnipeg Vincent Massey Trojans whipped the 9th-seeded Winnipeg Dakota Lancers 73-46 as Stephanie Kleysen scored 24. Carlene Ilago paced the Lancers with 7.
The 5th-seeded Brandon Crocus Plains Plainsmen upset the 4th-seeded Winnipeg Glenlawn Lions 61-42 as Tia Coulter scored 24 and nabbed 10 boards. Josie DeGagne added 16 and Brae-Ann Biggs 8. Plainsmen coach Barb Coulter told the Brandon Sun that Biggs did an excellent job of containing Lion star Taneesha Greaves to 12. “Taneesha usually gets 25 per game and both Brae-Ann and Brittany Wiebe both handled a very fast player by jumping the screens Glenlawn had set up.”
The 11th-seeded Winnipeg St. Mary’s Academy Flames stunned the 3rd-seeded Winnipeg River East Kodiaks 55-31 as Alicia Ogoms scored 19. Emily Loewen paced the Kodiaks with 20.
In the last quarterfinal, the 2nd-seeded Winnipeg Oak Park Raiders stomped the 10th-seeded Winnipeg Westwood Warriors 78-29 as Sierra Bubb scored 14. Lauren Anderson led the Warriors with 9.
In the semis, the top-seeded Winnipeg Vincent Massey Trojans clocked the 5th-seeded Brandon Crocus Plains Plainsmen 69-49 as Stephanie Kleysen scored 20, along with 12 boards, Ashleigh Chichlowski 20, along with 9 boards, and Britley Wermie 10. Tia Coulter led the Plainsmen with 17 boards and 8 boards. Josie Degagne added 12. The Trojans rallied from a shaky first half. Stephanie Kleysen and Ashleigh Chichlowski were in foul trouble early, which allowed the Plainsmen to build a 10-point lead. But then the dynamic duo got out of their nervous start. Crocus led 29-19 late in the second quarter and 29-24 at the half, but Massey stormed out of the gate after the break, outscoring the Plainsmen 29-13 in the third. “Ten points is nothing, really, with this group,” Trojans coach Stacy Hawash said. “We can score 10 in a minute if it comes down to it. So really it was not too stressful completely.” The turning point was a 30-second span early in the third after Chichlowski drained her second of four three-pointers. Kleysen stole the ball back, grabbed two offensive rebounds and dished off to Chichlowski, who nailed another from beyond the arc to put Massey up 36-31. They never looked back. “At half-time we just calmed down and took a breath and realized we just needed to play our game,” Chichlowski said. “But thank God we won.” Hawash said Kleysen, a 5-foot-10 guard, and Chichlowski, a 6-foot forward, are something special together. “Awesome. They feed each other so well,” Hawash said. “They’ve played together forever. They know where each other is.” Kleysen told the Winnipeg Free Press that “we came out with the jitters and were nervous. We adjusted to what the refs were calling and we were reminded of what we were going for and we decided that we’d play our game in the second half.” The Plainsmen were led by Tia Coulter with 17 points and Josie DeGagne with 12. Trojans coach Stacy Hawash said “we haven’t had a lot of close games, and we knew coming in they were going to be very aggressive, and they were. They took it to us. We were a bundle of nerves coming in, but we knew we could come back, and we did. They know how to play. The ones with the fouls were our senior players. They knew they had to settle down and come out and do the job for us. Ashleigh (a 6- foot centre) is a great inside/ outside player and great defensively and Steph can match up with anybody at guard and she can take it to the hole unbelievably.” Plainsmen coach Barb Coulter told the Brandon Sun “I don’t know if it was the hoop they were shooting at or what, but (Vincent Massey’s) shooting percentage went up through the roof. They punched our lights out with a few threes and it was difficult to recover from that. Our girls kept battling through the defensive end of it but we missed shots and they converted them.”
In the other semi, the 2nd-seeded Winnipeg Oak Park Raiders edged the 11th-seeded Winnipeg St. Mary’s Academy Flames 50-44 as Jenilyn Monton scored 13, including a trio from beyond the arc. Sierra Bubb added 9 and Shana Solarchuk 8. Alicia Ogoms paced the Flames with 20. Darah Dobie added 10. Monton said that the St. Mary’s pressure held them down, along with the fact they weren’t moving the ball as well as they could have. Oak Park led the whole way against St. Mary’s, except for a 26-26 tie with 5:34 left in the third quarter. The closest the Flames got in the fourth was four points down.
In the final, the top-seeded Winnipeg Vincent Massey Trojans nipped the 2nd-seeded Winnipeg Oak Park Raiders 63-62 as Stephanie Kleysen scored 30, Britley Wermie 13, Ashleigh Chichlowski 6 and Kirsten Bartlett 6. Sierra Bubb led the Raiders with 21. Shawna Solarchuk added 13 and Brittany Rosenfelt 10. It was a sweet repeat for the Trojans. “It’s just amazing to win this. It’s three years (of championships in a row (counting their junior varsity title) and the grade 12s and 11s have all pushed each other and we made it,” said Stephanie Kleysen, who grabbed a loose ball in the Raiders’ front court with time running out and her team down 62-61. She dribbled the ball down the sideline end-to-end, drew a foul, went to the line and drained both shots with 18 seconds left in the game and the Trojans held on for the win. “I was just trying to score and get the foul, because I knew that I’d go to the line. I’ve shot free throws hundreds of times — it was just about concentration. I just kept thinking about my team and how hard we’d worked to get there.” Oak Park coach Murray Brown said “you ask the kids to put everything into the game and they did that, and unfortunately it just didn’t work out for us. Our kids have battled hard for three years, not just this year, but they played in the final of the JV (junior varsity), they beat us in the semifinals last year and they just had our number.” Vincent Massey led throughout the game, save for the five times it was tied, until 5:21 was left and Oak Park led three times down the stretch. Oak Park’s final lead, which looked like it would hold, came when Kleysen stole the ball and passed it to forward Brittany Rosenfelt, who scored for a 62-61 lead. But in the end, the stage was set for Kleysen’s clutch free-throws. “It’s just an amazing feeling — we’ve won it three times. I believed we could do it and I’m just so happy that we did,” said Britley Wermie. Vincent Massey coach Stacy Hawash said it was her team’s grace under pressure in the game’s final minutes that sealed the victory. “It’s amazing. They worked so hard today. They worked so hard all year.” Kleysen was the slam-dunk tournament MVP, which this year included a $750 scholarship — courtesy, coincidentally enough, of Oak Park assistant coach Holly Kitchen. Kleysen grabbed her 14th rebound of the game with 30 seconds left in the contest and headed north towards Oak Park’s basket. When she got close, she was surrounded by Raiders and drew a foul as she attempted a lay-up. “As soon as I had (the ball) I was going straight to the hole,” Kleysen said. “There was no stopping me, because I wanted that foul to be drawn.” A timeout was then called, and the 17-year-old Grade 12 student spent the entire 30 seconds not listening to her coach. “I knew exactly what Stacy was going to say, so the whole time I was pretty much picturing my shot going on,” Kleysen said. “I had her in the background.” She then went out and calmly dropped the winning points into the basket. “There was a lot of pressure, but I knew that I could sink ’em because I’ve done it a hundred times and it was for my team,” said Kleysen. The Trojans led 30-27 at half-time and 51-48 after three quarters, but the Raiders took their first lead of the game, 58-57, with 5:27 to go in the fourth. There were five lead changes and three ties down the stretch that had the fans on the edge of their seats. “It was what you expect from the one and two seeds,” Brown said. Kitchen, who was the MVP of the girls’ tournament in 2004, also gave a $750 scholarship to the MVP of the boys’ tournament.
The co-bronze medalist Winnipeg St. Mary’s Academy Flames: Sarah Dobie; Alicia Ogoms; Darah Dobie; Dominique Demers; Stephanie Haynes
The co-bronze medalist Brandon Crocus Plains Plainsmen: Tia Coulter; Josie Degagne; Brittany Wiebe; Sarah Barclay; Jodie Baker; Mary Thomson; Brae-Ann Biggs; Ashley McKay; Brittney Ferguson; Taylor Ursel; coach Barb Coulter; assistant Rick DeGagne
The silver medalist Winnipeg Oak Park Raiders: Jayde Majewski; Kelsey Harrison; Kate Dorrian; Shawna Solarchuk; Marina DiCurzio; Sara Oswald; Deanna Cutler; Courtney Beavis; Siera Bubb; Jenilyn Monton; Kendra Kinley; Megan Moore; Brittany Rosenfelt; coach Murray Brown; assistant Holly Kitchen
The gold medalist Winnipeg Vincent Massey Trojans: Stephanie Kleysen; Britley Wermie; Ashleigh Chichlowski; Kirsten Bartlett; Marlo Huminski; Hayley Cardinal; Victoria Munro; Robyn Nairn; Ashley Olson; Alyzza Onio; Carolyn Wonneck; coach Stacey Hawash