O'Leary High School – The Paul Kane Blues settled for second best in the metro Edmonton premier women's basketball final Saturday.
The O'Leary Spartans, ranked number-one provincially in 4A, defeated the eighth-ranked Blues 66-48.
"It's definitely not the outcome we wanted," said Whitney Follette, Paul Kane's player of the game with 17 points. "It was a tough game. We tried hard and did our best. Hopefully we left it all out on the court. That's all we could do really."
The Spartans rolled up leads of 15-12 after the first quarter, 37-24 at halftime and 53-39 after three quarters.
"They really just pulled away from us," Follette said.
Adut Bulgak, the consensus league MVP, said the Spartans were motivated by their 59-54 loss to Paul Kane on Feb. 22.
"We came out with more energy and just played our hearts out because we knew how much they wanted this," said the dominating Grade 12 post and the team's co-captain. "It was a tough battle. We played hard and it was a good win."
Follette, 16, said the difference between the two games was the opening 10 minutes.
"The first quarter is what it's about for us. When we have a good first quarter it usually means we're going to have a good game and when we played them before we started off hard," said the six-foot-two Grade 11 forward. "In this game we started strong but not as strong as we would've liked to."
The Blues never held the lead but did score the last seven points in the first quarter to keep it close. However, after a Brittney Scott foul shot to start the second quarter, the Spartans broke it open with consecutive three-balls, triggering an 11-point run before Kelly Fagan's bucket stopped the onslaught at 26-15 with under six minutes left until halftime.
The Spartans racked up six three-balls in the first half, split between Alysha Zuczek and Samantha Hanrahan.
Overall the Spartans drained eight three-pointers, compared to only two by the Blues.
"Their shots were falling and ours weren't," said Follette, who tossed in five of the team's last six points in the second quarter.
Ashlynn Gentles of the Spartans led all scorers with 20 points. Hanrahan notched 16 points after recording 12 in the first half. Zuczek registered all 12 of her points before halftime.
"Shooting and being calm, that was the key. We were calm on offence and we let everything run," said Bulgak.
She was limited to six points in the first half while saddled with three fouls, but found her groove in the second half to finish with 15 points. The Blues used a variety of players to mark the intimidating third-year Spartan, but O'Leary's deep, experienced line-up proved to be too tough for Paul Kane to handle.
"This year was important for us because we had the most seniors [than the previous two years]. We've been fighting hard for this one and we deserved to win it," said Bulgak, who stuffed the Blues on a number of attempted shots.
The Spartans (16-1) also had extra incentive to win their 10th premier title in team history after falling short last year to the St. Albert Skyhawks. The final at O'Leary was decided by two free throws by the Skyhawks with 0.1 left on the clock to beat the Spartans 74-72.
"Yeah, we had some payback to win it this year, especially with home court advantage. We can't lose on our home court," said Bulgak, 18.
As for the Blues, they came up short in a rare trip to the premier final. They were over-matched at times at both ends of the court by the hungrier, determined Spartans.
"Maybe the aggressiveness wasn't there that we wanted to have," said Follette.
The highly regarded volleyball middle was a bright light offensively in the low post for the Blues in defeat.
"I just forgot about the past and played for today. I didn't worry about our record or their record. I just wanted to play hard."
Rounding out the scoring for the Blues was Fagan and Melissa Woolley with seven points apiece. Sarah Thomas added six and Scott had five before fouling out.
The Blues (12-5) were coming off a monstrous 75-67 performance in the premier semifinals against the Skyhawks, last year's 3A provincial gold medallists.
"This was a new game and a new team. We just tried to play our best this game and kind of ignored the other games," Follette said.
Zone playdowns
The Blues will now focus on the 4A zone playdowns. Today at 4:45 p.m. they host the Harry Ainlay Titans, the third place finishers in the Edmonton public league and a 4A honourable mention. Win or lose, the Blues are in action Friday at 5 or 7 p.m. at The King's University College.
If the Blues are victorious today and Friday, they will play Saturday at 11 a.m. at The King's against the Spartans or the public league champion Spruce Grove Panthers to determine the second and third zone seed at provincials next week at Ross Sheppard High School. The zone is sending four teams to provincials. The Spartans and Spruce Grove have already qualified as their respective league champions.
If the Blues lose two in a row at zones, they would be eliminated from provincial contention.
"We're going to approach these games strongly and we hope to win them," Follette said. "We're really pumped. We all want to go to provincials really badly. I don't think our senior team has ever gone to provincials for a long time and it would mean a lot if we did."
