SG Basketball @ Jeanne-Mance Tournament

 

After checking in to our hotel, we left for our first game of the tournament - a 9 pm (!) start against Mont-Royal. The boys (who did not have a game scheduled for Friday evening) were there to lend us their support. As the warmups were happening, one of the boys said that he thought that our girls would be up by 50 points before the start of the second half.

 

Of course, in sports one should never make assumptions about a competitor. Basketball games are played by your five against their five on the court, with all sorts of other factors involved in live competition.

 

We did end up winning the game, but it was certainly not the drubbing anticipated by at least one of our fans. We traded baskets during the first quarter. Zoey contributed one point, Addy, Bianca and Julia 2 points each and Maya carried the main load with 8 points during that period.  1Q Score: SC 15 - MR 12

 In the second quarter, Julia got hot and had three athletic plays (almost in a row) to add 6 more points to her tally so we ended the half with 8 points. The other two scorers in that period were Addy with 3 and Maya with 4. 2Q Score: SC 28 - MR 17  

The third quarter scoring was led by Addy with a 3-pointer and two other buckets for 7 points. The rest of the scoring, both 2 points each, were from Miranda and Bianca. 3Q Score: SC 39 - MR 23  

At this point, the game was in hand, and the balance of scoring was spread across four players who each scored 2 points - Erika, Julia, Zoe and Maya.  Final score: SC 47 - MR 30  

 

Our next pool game was played on Saturday against Carrefour. If we won this game, we would be assured of a first-place pool semi-final against a first-place team from another pool. The winner of that semi-final would go on to the championship final. This was probably our weakest opponent of the entire season. The quarter scores give an indication: 1Q Score: SC 14 - C 1  ...  2Q Score: SC 19 - C 6  ...   3Q Score: SC 25 - C 6  ...  Final score: SC 38 - C 14   The scorer seemed to have lost control of the paper at a few points, but I managed to get to a total of 38 points for the Spartans that properly assigns the correct total points to the appropriate players: Nya 1, Erika 2, Addy 2, Miranda 3, Bianca 6, Allie 8, and Maya 16.

 

The team held a team supper in downtown Montreal at an upscale burger restaurant on Crescent St. It was a nice way to celebrate the season (and Allie's birthday).

 

Sunday morning at 11:00am, we met our opposing team - Perseverence - which had also won both of their round-robin games handily. They had a small roster of 8 players but they were very athletic and obviously well schooled in terms of their plays and their focus. The first quarter ended with only a four-point difference between the teams. Our scorers were Julia, Charlotte and Addy with two points each.  1Q Score: SC 6 - P 10  

The second quarter was the story of the game. They pressed and scored and we were left in their dust. We managed only 3 points on a free throw by Nya and a bucket from Addy. They rattled off 15 points in the same eight minutes.   2Q Score: SC 9 - P 25  

We tried to chip away at that lead in the third quarter but it was insufficient as we managed 7 total points to their 19.  3Q Score: SC 16 - P 44  

Not much to do at that point but continue to try while seeing a clearly better team continue to control the outcome of the game.  Final score: SC 24 - P 56  

Top scorer on the day was Julia with 8, Piercey with 6, Miranda with 4, Maya with 3, Charlotte with 2, and Nya with 1. While the boys final would have been set earlier in the afternoon, the girls final was set much later so our loss (plus the boys team's opponent being a no-show for their consolation game) meant an earlier return to Stanstead for all of us to gain rest and study time. The Perseverance team we lost to in the semi-final did win the tournament championship by a score of 40-23 over Villa Maria.