Peacock, Central to Play for High School Girls City Title
Things went pretty much according to plan for the Peacock Toilers and Central Cyclones in the Moose Jaw High School Girls Basketball League semifinals. The two arch-rivals will once again have a chance to play for a city championship.
The defending league champion Toilers took an 86-33 win over the Caronport Cougars in their semifinal contest, while the Cyclones were similarly as dominant in their 77-35 victory against the Vanier Spirits.
The city championship took place on Mar. 13, with results unavailable as of press time.
The Toilers – who posted a perfect 8-0 record through the regular season – wasted little time getting things going against Caronport (2-6), rolling out to a 30-6 lead and holding a 51-13 edge at halftime.
All that despite not playing as well as they could have in the early going by Grade 12 guard Katherine McDougall’s assessment.
“We weren’t boxing out and we need to learn how to keep the intensity up at all times, so that’s what we focussed on as the game went on,” McDougall said after putting up eight points. “We have to avoid bad habits, not boxing out, not sprinting up the court each time, it’s kind of easy to fall back into that.. It’s the kind of things we can’t do in big games.”
Caronport put together a stunningly balanced performance, with Anna Maelde leading the team 11 points, Abby Busch and Kennedy Ward each scoring 10 and Piper Ingalls nine. Every player on the team had at least four points.
That kind of spread out scoring was expected to bode well when it came to the city title game at the always-raucous Sask. Polytech gym.
“The whole atmosphere is going to be really hyped up and really loud in the gym, so we’ll have to be ready for that, the kind of games that are really high intensity and nerve-wracking for the girls,” McDougall said. “But it’ll be a lot of fun and we’re hoping to do really well.” Melissa Ellis led Caronport with seven points, Emma Carter added six.
Central continued to show their season-long improvement in the other semifinal, as they turned in one of their best defensive showings of the season in their commanding win over the Spirits.
“I think defense is always hard work and you have to put in a lot of effort, so it was nice to be able to see work on the scoreboard,” said Grade 12 forward Ashlyn Jesse. “I thought we did pretty well, you never know what the outcome is going to be but I think we kept the momentum and that really helped us with not tiring out and being able to just keep pushing the ball.”
The Cyclones (6-2) took a 23-8 lead out of the first quarter and led 41 -12 at the half after holding Vanier (2-6) to only three points in the second quarter.
Kirstie Johnstone was Central’s top scorer with 16 points, Alexa Watterson added 13, Jesse 12 and Nylah Seaborn 11.
Vanier was led by Jenna Meili with 10 points to go along with nine from Annah McDonald.
Given the strides they’ve taken this season, were hoping for a solid performance in the title game after losing both regular season match-ups to Peacock.
“We’ve always been improving, we’ve been working really hard so we just have to go in there in the right mind and do our best,” Jesse said. “It’s going to be loud, it’s going to be a fast game but we’re going to play as well as we can and see what happens.”
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The SHSAA held it’s first round of provincial playdowns over the Mar. 9 weekend, with three Moose Jaw and area teams advancing to regionals this coming weekend.
At the 2A girls conference tournament in Herbert, the Cornerstone Christian School Falcons won their opener 47-41 over the host team to earn their regional berth. The conference final saw Shaunavon take a 56-42 win over Cornerstone in a game to decide regional seeding.
At the 3A girls conference playoffs in Kindersley, Caronport defeated Kindersley 77-59 and Assiniboia downed Maple Creek 61-28 to earn two of the regional spots available. Caronport then took a 76-55 win in the conference final.