In the opening round, held in Windsor: …………………………………………………… The top-seeded St. Catherine’s Governor Simcoe defeated the Orillia Park Street Trojans 48-14 as Samantha Scull scored 16 and Sarah Wilson 14. …………………………………………………… The 6th-seeded Sault Ste. Marie St. Basil Saints defeated the Belleville Quinte Saints 49-33. …………………………………………………… The 3rd-seeded Chatham John McGregor Panthers defeated the Cannington Brock Bulldogs 65-34. …………………………………………………… The 8th-seeded Ernestown Eagles defeated the Toronto Runnymede Redmen 41-36. …………………………………………………… The 9th-seeded Burlington Lester B. Pearson Patriots defeated 10th-seeded Brockville Thousand Islands Pirates 51-45 as Jovanna Lubarda scored 15. …………………………………………………… The 7th-seeded Dundas Parkside Panthers defeated the Cambridge Monsignor Doyle Mustangs 50-43 as Stephanie Ambramovich scored 16. Rochelle Reid led the Mustangs with 24. Angela Hummel added 13. …………………………………………………… The 4th-seeded Essex Red Raiders defeated the Ottawa St. Paul Golden Bears 56-25. Essex exploded to a 15-0 lead and romped. “15-0 is a good start,” guard Melise Ducharme told the Windsor Star. “Everyone was a little nervous before the game but once it got going, you forgot about that.” The Red Raiders led 35-13 at the half. “We shot the ball every well,” said forward Krista Matlack. “Everybody got into the game and that’s great experience.” Mindy Desjardins led Essex with 12. Crystal Bleau added 10, Jessi Piroski 5, along with 6 boards, Jacquelin Sinnaeve 5 and Jamie Gagnon 5. The Red Raiders traps forced 24 Golden Bears turnovers. Jyllian Grosse led St. Paul with 11 points, 4 boards and 2 blocks. Golden Bears coach Dan Pignat said “they’re the most athletic team we’ve seen all year. We can definitely play better than we did but even if we did, we might have been in tough against them anyway.” Red Raiders coach Joe Amicarelli said “it was absolutely the ideal start for us. A lot of our players have been getting minutes through the season but not in this type of setting, with this crowd and this type of basketball. They needed this exposure.” …………………………………………………… The 5th-seeded Scarborough Blessed Mother Teresa Titans dumped Thunder Bay Sir Winston Churchill Trojans 35-18. …………………………………………………… 2nd-seeded Stratford St. Michael pummelled the Timmins E.C.S. Theriault Flammes 46-11.
In the second round: …………………………………………………… The Cannington Brock Bulldogs defeated the Belleville Quinte Saints 37-25. …………………………………………………… The Ottawa St. Paul Golden Bears defeated the Thunder Bay Sir Winston Churchill Trojans 38-26.
In the third round: …………………………………………………… The 6th-seeded Sault Ste. Marie St. Basil Saints defeated the Orillia Park Street Trojans 59-18. …………………………………………………… The 3rd-seeded Chatham John McGregor Panthers dumped the Toronto Runnymede Redmen 53-19. …………………………………………………… The 7th-seeded Dundas Parkside Panthers defeated 10th-seeded Brockville Thousand Islands Pirates 58-44 as Stephanie Abramovitch scored 21. …………………………………………………… The 8th-seeded Ernestown Eagles defeated the 9th-seeded Burlington Lester B. Pearson Patriots 53-34 as Melanie Stevens scored 25. Stevens and Lindsey Sinclair scored a combined 14 in the fourth quarter to seal the win. “It’s the win we needed to have to accomplish the primary goal we had heading into OFSAA this time around,” Stevens told the Kingston Whig-Standard. “We’ve talked all week about holding our number eight seed and getting into a game with Governor Simcoe. It took a while but we got things going when we had to late in the first half.” Trailing 20-12 with two minutes remaining in the second quarter, Ernestown finally contained Pearson star Janet Pritchard long enough to put together a 5-1 scoring run to close the half. “We were really nervous about winning and getting into that quarter-final round game against Governor Simcoe,” said Sinclair, who hit 3 treys in the final half. “Pearson did a really good job of scoring early and that was frustrating for us [but] we’ve been together for some time now and we knew that once we got settled down, we’d be able to turn it around.” The Eagles took a 38-28 after three quarters after ripping off a 14-7 run that opened with a Sinclair trey and ended with a Stevens layup. The Patriots (coached by Rick McArthur) included Janet Pritchard, Jovanna Lubarda, Sabrina Radia-Bramwell, Lindsay Kennedy, Catherine McArthur, Michelle Tait, Allison Warren, Kym Chorkawy, Elise Michalowski, Marsha Pritchard, Maxine Gundermann, Jordan Angel. ………………………………………………… The 4th-seeded Essex Red Raiders defeated the Cambridge Monsignor Doyle Mustangs 47-25. The Red Raiders trailed 8-1 but exploded with a 14-0 second quarter to take command. Jessi Piroski scored 11, grabbed 6 boards and made 6 steals for Essex. Mindy Desjardins added 10 and made 5 steals. Rochelle Reid led the Mustangs with 10. Angela Hummel added 7 The Mustangs included Rochelle Reid, Jessica Dean. …………………………………………………… The 5th-seeded Scarborough Blessed Mother Teresa Titans defeated the Timmins E.C.S. Theriault Flammes 56-15. …………………………………………………… The top-seeded St. Catharines Governor Simcoe Redcoats dumped the Cannington Brock Bulldogs 49-20 as Sarah Wilson scored 11 and Jackie Snyder 10. …………………………………………………… 2nd-seeded Stratford St. Michael whipped the Ottawa St. Paul Golden Bears 40-27. The Golden Bears (coached by Dan Pignat, assisted by Kevin Manion and Theresa Watters) included Kristi Middleton, Katie Bingham, Emily Rose, Jen Prevost, Sara Latreille, Jennie Guay, Alison McIntyre, Keely Manion, Ashley Raaymakers, Kaitlin McNutt, Shannon Mullen and Jyllian Grosse.
In the quarterfinals, the 3rd-seeded Chatham John McGregor Panthers defeated the Sault St. Marie St. Basil Saints 60-34. The Saints (coached by Ed Green) featured Jenna Caicco, Katie Hamilton, Alisha Lepine, Nadia Mazzuca, Aine Coccimiglio, Ashley Caputo, Kaitlin De Boer, Melissa Stumpo, Deahdra Bowier, Aniela Pulice, Dana Ferguson, Heidi Jaaskelainen, Jennifer Di Donato and Carolyn Coccimiglio.
The 4th-seeded Essex Red Raiders defeated the Scarborough Blessed Mother Teresa Titans 53-42. Forward Diane Chittle hit consecutive treys to stem the bleeding after the Titans had ripped off a 14-2 run in the third quarter. “We basically went cold and we just had to keep shooting and hope it would end,” Chittle told the Windsor Star. Essex broke to an 18-6 lead and extended it to 25-15 in the second quarter before Mother Theresa rallied to within 31-21 at the half. The Titans took a 35-33 lead with three minutes left in the third quarter when Chittle hit the two bombs. Melise Ducharme added a trey early in the third quarter as Essex extended its lead to 47-40 and then iced it at the line. “We don’t normally have a cold spell that lasts that long,” said Ducharme. “Our coaches told us to just play through it and we did.” Ducharme led the Raiders with 15. Mindy Desjardins added 14, Crystal Bleau 8 and Chittle 9, while playing stellar defence on 6-4 Titan center Tiffany Lafleur. “We actually needed a tough game,” said Essex coach Joe Amicarelli. “I’m glad we went through something like this, and won.” Titans coach Ron Burrows said “slow starts have been problematic for us in this tournament. But Essex is a really, really good team. I’m proud of the fact that we made some adjustments and came back the way we did.”
The Dundas Parkside Panthers upset 2nd-seeded Stratford St. Michael 49-42.
In the last quarterfinal, the top-seeded St. Catharines Governor Simcoe Redcoats defeated the Ernestown Eagles 47-30. “We played well but we just happened to lose to the defending champion, a very strong club,” Eagles coach Tom Turnbull told the Kingston Whig-Standard. “We probably could have beaten any other team in the tournament except [Governor Simcoe]. We were overmatched.” Jacqui Snyder led the Eagles with 16. Victoria Snyder added 6 and Melanie Stevens 5. The Eagles (coached by Turnbull) also included Hayley Baston, Lindsay Sinclair, Kelsey Gibson.
In the semis, the Essex Red Raiders upset the top-seeded St. Catharines Governor Simcoe Redcoats 57-45. “I don’t know if we ever played better than we did in that game,” Essex coach Joe Amicarelli told the Windsor Star. The Red Raiders man-to-man defence befuddled the taller Redcoats. They led by as many as 18. Mindy Desjardins and Jessi Piroski each scored 18 to lead Essex. Jamie Gagnon added 9. Samantha Scull led the Redcoats with 14.
In the other semi, the 3rd-seeded Chatham John McGregor Panthers defeated the Dundas Parkside Panthers 65-39. Alicia Jury led the Panthers with 12. Stephanie Abramovich added 12.
In the bronze medal match, the St. Catharines Governor Simcoe Redcoats pounded the Dundas Parkside Panthers 57-38 as Sarah Wilson scored 23. Redcoats coach John Dakin told the St. Catharines Standard that “we were very disappointed that we didn’t take gold, that’s for sure. It took us a while to get out of that funk. …. Having won gold (a year earlier), it sort of taints your perspective. It wasn’t the colour we wanted but it’s still a huge accomplishment.” Stephanie Abramovich led the Panthers with 21. The Panthers also included Alicia Jury.
In the final, the 3rd-seeded Chatham John McGregor Panthers defeated the 4th-seeded Essex Red Raiders 49-42 as Kelly Watson scored 19 and Stacie Vriesema 15. Essex coach Joe Amicarelli, whose squad had beaten John McGregor two weeks earlier in the SWOSSA final, told the Windsor Star that the Panthers “threw a little wrinkle at us. They used a 1-3-1 halfcourt press on us and uncharacteristically, we turned the ball over. We must have made 30 turnovers in the game and we missed 15 layups.” Amicarelli surmised his troops were still celebrating the semi-final win over the top seed. “To make it to the final is a great accomplishment. We were in the tournament as the host seed. For two teams from this area to be 1-2 shows the quality of ball at this end of the province.”
The bronze medalist St. Catharines Governor Simcoe Redcoats: Jaymi Edwards; Edina Prsic; Brittany Anderson; Jacqui Precious; Bethany Krawec; Kylie Flynn; L.B. Brown; Samantha Scull; Robyn Simpson; Sarah Wilson; Ashley Berry; Jackie Snyder; coach John Dakin
The silver medalist Essex Red Raiders: Diane Chittle; Crystal Bleau; Mindy Desjardins; Jessi Piroski; Jamie Gagnon; Melise Ducharme; Krista Matlack; Jacquelin Sinnaeve; Renee Worotny; Sarah Humphrey; Jacquelin Sinnaeve; coach Joe Amicarelli; assistant John Garinger
The gold medalist Chatham John McGregor Panthers: Kelly Watson; Stacie Vriesema; coach Blake Handsor; assistant Schram