The Paul Kane Blues celebrated a major milestone in Wednesday's emotional conquest of the St. Albert Skyhawks in high school women's basketball.
"It's such an amazing feeling to beat them. We're just brimming with unbelievable excitement," said over-the-moon captain Kelly Fagan, as the Blues whooped it up like rock stars after humbling last year's 3A provincial gold medallists and metro Edmonton premier champions 75-67 in the league semifinal at the SkyDome.
"It's been such a long battle for us against this team. For some of the girls it's been three years of struggling against them. They're our crosstown rivals, too, so it's just that much more nicer that we beat them the way we did today," Fagan added. "We came into this game with the attitude that we had nothing to lose and if it's our last game, let's show them that we're not going out without a fight."
The Blues played to win against the scared-looking, defensively weak and porous-shooting Skyhawks.
"I take my hat off to the girls at Paul Kane. They absolutely deserved to win the game," said John Dedrick, head coach of the number-one ranked 3A team in Alberta. "They worked extremely hard. They didn't turn the ball over as much as they characteristically do against us and they shot the ball better than they characteristically do against us."
In three previous tilts this year dominated by the Skyhawks, the Blues lost by margins of 11 and 21 in premier and by 13 in the final of the Optimist Showdown in St. Albert.
"We flustered them like they flustered us previously," said a smiling Josee Larson, a Grade 10 guard who provided instant offence coming off the bench with a team-high 17 points. "We really played our game and we didn't let them push us around. We fought back and did everything we could and left everything on the court. We pushed as much as we could and we didn't have an ounce of energy at the end."
The Blues led 21-15 after the first quarter, 39-31 at halftime and 57-46 after three quarters.
"We worked really well as a team. We really stopped their game and really made them play Paul Kane basketball. We didn't play their basketball like we had in the previous games," said Larson, who carved up the Skyhawks for 10 points in the second quarter, including two huge three-balls that rattled the Skyhawks. "We really made them take tough shots and didn't give them anything easy. We stopped transition. We pushed the ball well and really worked the ball hard as a team to get each other open."
Premier final
The Blues (12-4) will now challenge the O'Leary Spartans (15-1), ranked fourth in 4A, for premier honours today at O'Leary High School. Tip-off is 5 p.m.
The Blues are gunning for their first premier senior women's championship in metro.
"We're really pumped," Larson said. "If we just keep playing the way we are, we have a good chance. I know we will fight to the end, like we did today."
Last week the Blues handed the Spartans their first loss in premier, a stunning 59-54 decision at Paul Kane.
"We really keyed in on who their key player is, which is Adut [Bulgak, a towering Grade 12 post]. We made sure that we knew where she was. We also had a very specific game plan prior to that game that we made sure we followed and that really helped us," said Fagan, a reliable six-foot-one Grade 12 post who will go toe-to-toe with Bulgak in the final.
Beating the perennial premier contenders and last year's metro finalists was a major turning point in the season.
"Knowing that we could beat the top team in our league and someone so well ranked provincially was a confidence booster. It gave us the knowledge that we could come in here and definitely win it," said Fagan, 17, a third-year senior. "Having the confidence to take the shots that were open and making sure that we were going for the steals and putting the pressure on was definitely a big factor in the win today."
Playoff showdown
In the playoff showdown between St. Albert's biggest basketball rivals, the Blues jumped ahead to stay early in the riveting affair and kept on adding to the lead as the Skyhawks scrambled to play catch up.
After a three-ball by Allie Larson — Josee's older sister — to make it 63-55 with 4:31 to play, the Skyhawks clawed their way back to make it a game. Three-balls by Kendall Lydon and Zoe Downing 26 seconds apart left the Skyhawks trailing by one with 1:54 remaining.
After a timeout by the Blues, Fagan tossed in an offensive rebound while off balanced with 1:39 on the clock. Paige Knull replied for the Blues 14 seconds later to make it a one-point contest.
The Blues refused to wilt, however, as Whitney Follette drove the lane and deposited the ball through the hoop with 67 seconds to go to put the Blues up 67-64.
With the Skyhawks back on offence, Downing's pass was picked off by Josee. She raced in and was chopped down by the Downing. The 15-year-old Larson calmly sank both free throws with 57.6 seconds on the clock. The first throw hit the rim before dropping. The second attempt bounced off the glass and in.
"I really wanted to help step up for the Grade 12 players. We really had to beat St. Albert high and I wanted to do it for them," said Josee, a junior high product from Devon who racked up 10 points in the second quarter, including two three-balls, and added another three-pointer in the third quarter to make it 48-37.
After a three-ball by Lydon, the Blues marched down the court and Allie went baseline with a wicked move to extend the led to 71-67 with 28.5 seconds left.
The Skyhawks continued to pressure for points, but after misses by Lydon and Katie Burak, Fagan was fouled and she made no mistake in salting away both free throws with 17.1 remaining and that was pretty much the ball game.
"They were a little nerve-racking but I felt fairly confident that I could do it," said Fagan of the shots.
She finished the game with 11 points. Allie tacked up 13 and Follette had 12.
The Skyhawks' top scorer was Shelby Hucul with 16. Downing chipped in with 14, including four three-balls. Lydon had 11 on the strength of three three-balls in the fourth quarter.
There was no home court advantage for the Skyhawks as the Paul Kane supporters were equally as vocal as the Skyhawks' fans during the raucous affair.
"Playing in front of a big crowd was just amazing because you get all this energy coming at you from all sides and you just feed off that," Fagan said.
The bottom line in the match was the Blues refused to lose when it was too close to call down the stretch.
"It was like, 'OK, we have to do this.' We knew what had to be done to win the game so we focused on that instead of the moment," Fagan said.
The Skyhawks were guilty of not making the big shots when it counted. They also threw more incomplete passes than the Skyahwks' quarterbacks did in the senior Carr conference, which says a lot considering how bad the football team's offence was last year.
"Coming back to get within one, Paul Kane either got an offensive rebound or a put back or something and we could never quite get that basket to put us up," Dedrick said. "It's no secret that for us to do well we have to shoot the ball well and we have to get good looks. Sometimes we weren't getting good looks or we were missing some shots that were open that we would normally make.
"I do believe that we did get a little bit tight. We had a couple of timeouts where we said we have to do fundamental things, like fake a pass before you throw it, box out — little things like that, and in the end those were the little things that hurt us. How many second chance points did they get because of no box out? I know they're huge [with Fagan and the six-foot-two Follette] but still we have to do a better job than what we did."
After the game the Blues partied like it was 1999, while the Skyhawks flooded the gym with tears. The Blues even took a post-game picture to commemorate their achievement.
"The Paul Kane girls came off the court like they won the city championship, so that shows you emotionally what a big deal it was to beat us. It's no different than the Bellerose football team beating the Skyhawks. You want a rivalry to exist. Sometimes there is no rivalry if the other team always loses, so from a standpoint of basketball in St. Albert and between the two schools I think it's great," Dedrick said. "Do I like to lose? Never. Could it help us? I definitely told the players to remember how this feels."
The Skyhawks (13-3 in premier, 26-12 overall) will now focus on next week's 3A zone playdowns. Two provincial berths are up for grabs for the March 17 to 19 provincials in Chestermere.
A victory today for the Blues would clinch a berth at the 4A provincials in two weeks at Ross Sheppard High School. The Edmonton zone will be represented by four teams. The Blues will still compete in zones next week regardless of the outcome of the premier final.
