Edmonton Christian School – The team to beat at the 3A provincial tournament is on a mission to defend its championship.
“We’re all extremely determined and focused to do it again,” said co-captain Shelby Hucul, after the St. Albert Skyhawks whipped the Edmonton Christian Lions 80-50 in the Edmonton zone final Thursday. “We should do pretty good because we know what to expect from last year.”
Only a repeat performance at provincials will satisfy the Skyhawks.
“There is a huge target on our backs. It’s been there all year, but that’s OK. We’re ready to go,” said shooting star Kendall Lydon. “After last year there is pressure on us but it also makes us want to play really good, too.”
The 12-team draw tips off Thursday at Chestermere.
“We’ve got to want every single game every single second of every single game,” said Hucul, a workaholic Grade 12 guard and the team’s undisputed floor general. “We’ve got to play our game of basketball, push the ball up the court and play hard defence.
“Defence, though, is definitely the key.”
The Skyhawks qualified for their seventh-straight provincials in Wednesday’s 119-50 blowout of the Beaumont Bandits in Wednesday’s zone semifinal at the SkyDome.
“We’re all pretty excited. We’re a young team still, so going to provincials again is huge deal for us,” said Lydon, one of five returnees on the 11-player roster from last year’s 34-5 Skyhawks, the first St. Albert team to win a provincial women’s title in high school hoops. “Just being there last year and having all that experience will probably help all of us this year.”
Thursday’s playoff at the home of the Lions determined the top zone team and wild card entry for provincials.
“It’s a great accomplishment going to provincials again and even coming here and winning this game is another plus. It’s a good lift-off for provincials,” Hucul said.
The 29th win in 41 games marked the fifth year in a row the Skyhawks soared into provincials as the zone champion.
“We knew we really needed to get a good game in before provincials and it went pretty good. We ran the ball well and played defence pretty good,” said Lydon, a Grade 11 guard who unloaded six three-balls and 30 points on the beleaguered Lions.
The Skyhawks grew stronger as the game progressed while manufacturing leads of 18-12 after the first quarter, 34-29 at halftime and 55-35 after three quarters.
The TSN turning point was a 15-2 point run to start the second half, including 11 in a row before the Lions sank their second basket in the quarter with 2:50 to go.
In the last 10-minute period, Lydon and Zoe Downing silenced the Lions with two three-balls apiece.
Lydon, 17, was too hot to handle for the Lions with 16 points before the break and four three-balls in the second half.
Grade 11 post Haley England was a physical presence in the paint while contributing 10 points.
Downing added eight points and Katie Burak had six.
“We definitely stepped it up in the second half. We were talking a lot more and playing as a team,” said Hucul, who tacked up eight of her 12 points after halftime. “We just calmed things down a little bit more and played our game.”
Despite the lopsided score, the Lions were no slouches. The sixth-ranked 3A team in Alberta finished 10-0 in the Edmonton public league’s tier 2 division and in the zone semifinals knocked off the fourth-ranked Louis St. Laurent Barons, the undefeated metro Edmonton city champions, 68-55.
The Skyhawks stormed through the zone playdowns with a 74-point margin of victory against the Holy Trinity Trojans, the 10th place team in the city conference, followed by the 69-point spread against Beaumont, the eighth-place finisher in the city standings.
“It was fun. We got to shoot a lot and that really helped our shooting,” Lydon said.
Leading up to zones, the Skyhawks lost three out of four games in their worst slump of the season.
With first place on the line in the premier conference, the 2010 metro champions coughed up a lengthy lead with less than two minutes to play, as the number-one ranked 4A O’Leary Spartans completed a 75-69 comeback in the last game before the playoffs.
In the final of the 3A-calibre Wetaskiwin tournament, McCoy of Medicine Hat grounded the Skyhawks 78-69. They were handcuffed by fouls and eventually lost the game in the fourth quarter on giveaways. The result dropped the Skyhawks from their season-long perch as the number-one 3A team into second spot and McCoy moved up a notch to the top of leader board.
The most humbling loss in recent team history was the 75-67 drubbing by the Paul Kane Blues in the premier semifinal at the SkyDome. The score flattered the Skyhawks after defeating the Blues in three previous meetings.
“We’ve now realized it’s not simply going to be given to us. We have to work extremely hard every single game and keep pushing ourselves,” said Hucul, 17, a third-year Skyhawk who is one of two Grade 12s in the line-up along with forward Stephanie Gartner.
Losing to the rival Blues however was a huge wake-up call.
“I don’t think any one of us have been so mad like that after a game,” Lydon said. “When we lost to them we knew it was a reality check for us and now we know every game we need to come out ready to play.”
