Ontario Cup
U14 Callahan Div 2 Ontario Cup Bronze
The Belleville Spirits U14 Callahan girls travelled to Niagara this past weekend to compete at the Ontario Cup Provincial playoff.
As the 3 seed in Division 2, the girls we were positioned to compete for a medal.
Opening game on Friday night was against the Barrie Royals who Belleville had already beaten once earlier in the season.
Belleville jumped on Barrie early with their trapping defense, forcing turnovers which lead to transition baskets.
Leading 26-15 at the half, Belleville cruised to a 56-31 win.
Sofia Edgett led the scoring with 27 points, followed by Rose Hanna with 12 and Kyrah Currin with 8.
Game 2 Saturday morning presented another familiar opponent, the Windsor Lady Suns.
Again, the Spirits defense was too much for the Suns to handle. Windsor could only muster 11 first half points and Belleville kept up the offensive pace winning 55-23.
A balanced scoring attack lead by Edgett 22, Hanna 11, Currin 7, both Peyton Pleasance and Kaylynn Dutton with 6 apiece.
A gold medal berth was on the line in game #3 as Belleville faced another 2-0 team, the St. Thomas Shock.
Spirits jumped out to an early 8-0 lead but were unable to put any more distance between them and St. Thomas.
Despite too many uncharacteristic turnovers and missed free throws, Belleville maintained a 30-25 lead at the half.
Unfortunately, the turnovers and missed scoring opportunities were too much to overcome and St. Thomas came away with a 57-49 win, bumping Belleville to the bronze medal game against the Huron Lakers.
Edgett and Hanna lead the scoring again with 23 and 15 respectively. Currin, Pleasance and Myla Empey all with 4.
Getting fired up for a bronze medal game after a disappointing loss can be tough but the girls understood the assignment.
They still had something to play for and ending the season with a win no matter the circumstances, should always be the goal.
Belleville has a win and a loss against Huron during the season, both very competitive and physical games. With only one result in mind on Sunday morning, the Spirits dominated the game from start to finish.
Frustrating Huron with their smothering defense and then pushing the pace on offense, Belleville put together their best all around game of the year, ending up with a 43-24 bronze medal win.
Edgett-24, Hanna-12.
Belleville ends the season ranked in the top 20 in Ontario and the top team in Eastern Ontario.
Thanks to team sponsors Patriot Excavating, Stegg, Free Flow, Sprague Foods, Workspace Office Solutions, Build All Contractors, and Watson Land Surveyors Ltd
U14 Spirits are Ontario Cup Gold Medal Champions!
The u14’s agreed on one goal….to win the final game of the season regardless of where they placed… and that is exactly what they did.
Niagara Falls was the final stop in the Spirits u14’s girls season as they attended the Ontario Cup finals this past weekend. All of their effort, dedication, teamwork and growth were on display in four action packed and exciting games that saw their families and fans cheering them on every step of the way.
The team went 3-0 in pool play, including a highly anticipated game versus the Kingston Impact team on Saturday morning, who had beat them twice before during the season.
It was a defensive battle at halftime, with a low score of 11-9 for Impact.
The girls dug deep in the second half, handling the constant full court pressure and scoring an incredible 32 points, leading to a 41-30 victory and more importantly, a spot in the gold medal game on Sunday versus a very talented Flamborough Fire team.
Battling another full court defense, it did not look promising early on for the girls, trailing 22-13 at half.
Showing a never quit attitude and the incredible support coming from team-mates and families backing them up, the girls made one final push in the 3rd quarter, outscoring Flamborough 20 – 8 and hanging on to win the gold medal game with a score of 38-35.
Incredible effort from all involved and an experience that will be remembered for a long time.
Thanks to everyone involved in making it a great season!
– Coach McGrath
U12 Spirits Finish Season 12th In Province
The U12 Belleville Spirits girls competed in their Ontario Cup this past weekend in Ottawa, playing in Division 1, (just below OBLX).
With 6 returning players, and 6 new players, we were somehow placed in Pool A (just below OBLX) in the OBL league. With some trepidation we didn’t challenge the placement and decided to do our best.
The girls not only proved that they could compete at this level, they remained there even after the re-ranking. This led to a final ranking of 13th in the province of 48 teams, and 5th seed in Division 1 for the Ontario Cup.
Game 1:
Mississauga (the eventual Gold Medal winners who started out in OBLX) defeated us 50 to 29 in the 1st game. It was close in the 1st half, only down 25 to 20 but ran into some foul trouble, losing one of our top players and struggled a bit on defense afterwards. I do not have any individual stats.
Player of the Game: Abby Whitten for her defense and pitching in with a nice basket!
Game 2:
In a must win game we defeated Peterborough (a team we lost to 3 times in the regular season and ranked just above us).
Game MVPs: Callie Lyall led the team with 13 points, Shelby Brant with 5 and Kyrah Currin with 3.
Game 3:
In another must win game for us to get into a medal game, we defeated Thornhill 34 to 28 (who had earlier defeated Mississauga). Shelby led the team with 13 points and was outstanding offensively; Callie with 7 and Kyrah with 5.
Co-Players of the game: Shelby (offensively), Callie (for a strong 2-way game) and Kyrah for outstanding defense.
With a 2 and 1 record we tied with Mississauga for 1st but lost out on the tie-breaker. So we moved on to the Bronze Medal game.
Game 4:
In the Bronze Medal game we started out really flat and were down 25-5 early in the 2nd half.
After a ‘fiery’ half time ‘motivational’ speech (more fire than motivation if I’m to be honest 🙂) we competed hard in the rest of the 2nd half eventually losing 37 to 28. We ended up outscoring them 23-12 in the final 3 shifts.
Myla Empey led the team with 10 points, Kyrah with 6, Shelby with 4 and Callie with 3.
Co-players of the game: Mila Kalyaev (our Grade 4 girl) scored 1 of her 2 tournament baskets this game) and Myla Empey for dominating at both ends of the court.
When the realization kicked that this was our last official game of the year, some tears were shed (I hid mine until I got back to the car).
Rest of the team included:
Liberty Bergen, Raya Holoway, Nora Gabourie, Audrina Carty, Zoe Hall and Avery Hayes who contributed to our success this weekend.
I’m so proud of all these girls and I want to thank all of them for the fun times we had, for competing hard every game and thanks to the parents for all their support (although they kept me up way to long on Saturday night), Stacy Lyall, Mellissa Gabourie and Ashley Empey for all the work they did with communication, logistics, hotel arrangements etc.
Huge thanks to coach Darryl Drain for all he did for the team this year and coaching the 6 returning players last year and Gary Lyall for helping.
Visit this teams page here
For info on next seasons tryouts, click here
