Royals rally late to reach semifinals

The Lajeunesse Royals battled back to earn a spot in the medal round at the OFSAA girls’ A basketball championship in North Bay on Friday.

Olivia Scott’s jumper with 75 seconds left in the fourth quarter finally put the No. 3-ranked Royals in front and Lajeunesse held on for a 32-31 win over the No. 6-ranked Brockville St. Mary’s Crusaders in quarter-final play. “Heart attack game,” Royals head coach Linda Carriere said. “Nail-biter game. We were down the whole game until two minutes left.” Lajeunesse trailed by six points at the half and got to within three points heading to the fourth quarter where the club was able to find just enough offence against a bigger St. Mary’s squad. Jamilah Christian and Ashanti Christian each finished with 12 points against the Crusaders. Earlier in the day, Lajeunesse moved into the quarter-finals with a 54-9 win over No. 14-seed Whitby Saint Charles Garnier led by eight-points each from Ashanti Christian and Megan Gahima. Lajeunesse will face the No. 2-ranked Breslau Woodland Christian Cavs in a semifinal on Saturday with a win sending the team to the gold-medal game. The Cavs upset Lajeunesse in last year’s quarter-finals at OFSAA.

The Essex Red Raiders reached the quarter-finals on Friday at the OFSAA boys’ AA volleyball championship in Sydenham. The Red Raiders closed out pool play on Friday with a win over the No. 8-seeded Cobourg St. Mary’s Thunder. Essex took the match 2-0 by scores of 25-11 and 26-24 and that left the Red Raiders second in their pool and a spot in the quarterfinals against the No. 2-seeded Ottawa Franco Cite Falcons.

The host Kennedy Clippers were ousted from the OFSAA boys’ AAA volleyball championship on Friday after a pair of losses. The Clippers, who were the No. 20 seed in the 20team tournament, finished 0-4 in pool play and failed to advance after falling to both the No. 16-ranked Kingston Regiopolis-Notre Dame Panthers and the No. 6-ranked Toronto York Mills Titans.