Pat Payton
Sports Editor
Central Rams Senior girls’ basketball team completed an unblemished 9-0 Huron-Perth season last Wednesday at Northwestern.
A hard-fought, physical-at-times 44-31 victory over the home-court Huskies gave the Rams first place and home-court advantage in the playoffs, which began with the H-P quarter-finals on Wednesday of this week.
The league semi-finals are Monday, Nov. 9, and the finals are Wednesday, Nov. 11.
The regular-season title for Brett Syer’s Senior Rams is the first for Central since 1989 when they finished first in Tier ‘AA’ with a 10-0 record.
Last season, Syer guided his Senior girls to a 9-1 league mark. This year, Rams wanted to improve on that record, but it was a tough task … they had to be perfect to do it!
Quick start for Rams
One of the keys to last Wednesday’s win was Central’s quick start. Rams raced out to an 11-1 first-quarter cushion.
Northwestern chipped away at the lead in the second quarter, but still trailed 20-11 at the half-time break.
“One of our goals is to always get a quick start, and we always play much better when we get off to a quick start,” Syer said following the game.
However, he said Rams’ slow start in each of the second, third and fourth quarters allowed Huskies to get back in the game.
Northwestern closed the gap to 22-16 before the third quarter was three minutes old, but Central pulled away again – thanks to a three-point bomb from Paige Holdsworth – and led 30-20 going into the fourth.
Aided by Jenna Ney’s three-point bucket, Huskies again threatened early in the final period – slashing the Rams lead to 30-25 with just over six minutes to play.
Another big three-point basket by Holdsworth, with 3:27 remaining, restored a 10-point lead for Central and it seemed to take some fight of Northwestern.
“In the second half of each quarter, we kind of made our push then,” Syer said. “Effort-wise, it was one of our better efforts today. Performance-wise, it wasn’t. That’s why Northwestern kept chipping away, and we had to keep pushing them back.”
Syer said he felt his team’s lead was still safe, even when Huskies closed to within five and six points.
13 points for Holdsworth
Holdsworth led Rams with a game-high 13 points, while Kate Kuntze and Brianne Brothers each had nine. Spunky guard Rae Schulman-Dupuis – the quarterback of the Central offence – added eight points, including six in the first quarter, and several steals.
Jenna Ney had 12 points for the Huskies, including two three-pointers. Meghan Hillstrom added 11 points, and Dallas Miller five.
“We have issues at times when we have little lapses,” Northwestern coach Derek Farr said. “We had good looks at the basket, but they just weren’t falling in for us.
“But the information we got from this game is that we are right there with both St. Mikes and Central, and we’ll battle really hard in the playoffs.”
Farr said his team also won more battles for the ball under both the offensive and defensive boards.
“We only had seven players today; we’ve had a lot of kids sick at our school,” Farr added. “We’ve also had a few injuries that we’re working through, but we’ll be right there in the playoffs.”
At Goderich last Wednesday, the St. Mikes Senior girls defeated the host Vikings 55-20. Laura Groenestege scored 12 points, Larissa Van De Walle 11, and Nikki Fulton and Tara McPherson eight apiece.
Central and Stratford St. Mikes (8-1) earned byes through the quarter-finals this week, and will host semi-final games next Monday. Huskies (7-2) finished third. A victory in yesterday’s quarter-finals would give Northwestern a berth in the semi-finals at St. Michael.
Wingham’s F.E. Madill (6-3) finished alone in fourth place in the Senior girls’ standings.
