Oscar Romero High School – It’s a slam-dunk the Paul Kane Blues will contend for championship honours after a four-year playoff absence in high school women’s basketball.
Their third straight win in the metro Edmonton premier conference and sixth overall to tip off the season was Wednesday’s 73-21 rout of the Oscar Romero Ravens in Edmonton.
“It’s really exciting definitely to get some wins. The team’s morale is so high right now. It’s great,” said Brittney Scott, a Grade 12 post who sank a team-high 14 points against the Ravens.
The Blues are coming off a 2-7 campaign after going 3-11 in 2008/09.
“For a lot of us that are in Grade 12 it’s a huge deal that we can finally get it together and just go out there and play, have fun and be winning,” Scott said.
The core of the roster is made up of five returnees and six seniors, including third-year veteran and provincial team forward Kelly Fagan. The line-up also features six Grade 11s and Grade 10 guard Josee Larson. The majority of the Blues have celebrated premier junior championships before moving up to the varsity team.
“We’ve come together as a team really well this year compared to past years and that is really making a difference as we keep moving forward,” Scott said. “Everybody wants to win. Everybody is on everybody’s back, pushing them to go harder and we’re not going to stop until everybody gets to the point where we want to be at.”
The team to beat in premier is the O’Leary Spartans (2-0), winners of the Mike Dea and Jasper Place REB tournaments this month. The St. Albert Skyhawks (4-0 and 7-3 overall) are the reigning premier champs and 3A provincial gold medallists.
The Blues are expected to give O’Leary its toughest test.
“When we play St. Albert High [Jan. 10 at Paul Kane] and O’Leary [Jan. 31 at O’Leary] it’s really going to tell us where we are this season because we don’t really know,” Scott said. “We’ve had a few blowout games, but that doesn’t really tell us much, so once we play those top teams, that will tell us whether we’ve really progressed far enough to be a complete contender in this league.”
Winning the SAIT tournament in Calgary on the eve of the metro season was a huge confidence booster. The Blues posted wins of 61-40 against St. Francis of Calgary, 63-24 against Salmon Arm and in the final overcame a sizable halftime deficit to defeat Calgary’s Bishop Grandin 73-50. Game MVP awards were presented to Grade 11 guard Melissa Woolley, Grade 12 forward Allie Larson and Grade 11 forward Whitney Follette.
In three premier wins the Blues averaged 71.6 points for and 36.3 against.
“We’re winning because of our defence and our fast break,” Scott said. “Teams haven’t been scoring very high numbers on us. We’re also running the floor and people can’t keep up right now.”
The Blues showed what they are made of in Monday’s 73-30 thrashing of the Archbishop Jordan Scots (1-2) in Sherwood Park.
“That was by far the best game we’ve had, hands down,” Scott said. “Our intensity was high in all four quarters. We’ve been struggling, having some lags in quarters but that game it was hard for all 40 minutes.”
In the last game before the Christmas break against the winless Ravens, the Blues cruised to leads of 30-3 after the first quarter, 50-7 at halftime and 60-14 after three quarters. The bulk of the points came off turnovers.
The Blues racked up 26 in a row in the first quarter as eight players registered points. Follette, a tall hoopster and noted volleyball player, passed up a golden opportunity to dunk the ball in the opening period in a show of good sportsmanship. After picking off a pass in Paul Kane’s end, Follette had a clear lane to the basket but instead of stuffing the orange pill through the rim she tossed in an uncontested layup to make it 17-1.
In the next quarter the Blues tacked up 20 straight points before the Ravens made their second basket of the game with 2:28 left until halftime.
“It was a hard game to play. We had to push ourselves to compete to our level, not to their level. There was nobody pushing us because the scoreboard wasn’t pushing us,” said Scott, 17, a rugged rebounder and consistent offensive contributor.
The Blues emptied the bench with the outcome a done deal after the first quarter. Ten players finished the blowout with points. Follette registered 10 and the Larson sisters had seven apiece. In the first quarter Allie did all her scoring and Josee nailed a three-pointer.
The Blues are back on the floor Boxing Day at the Surf and Slam San Diego Hoop Classic.
