Saturday's provincial repeat was pure gold for the St. Albert Skyhawks.
"It gets better each time. Everybody is pretty excited about winning back to back titles," an upbeat Kendall Lydon told the Gazette from the team bus Sunday morning, as the Skyhawks returned home from successfully defending their 3A provincial high school crown the night before in Calgary.
In the final the Skyhawks jumped ahead to stay in the opening minute in period two, en route to a 74-63 runaway victory against the McCoy Colts of Medicine Hat.
"We just wanted it super bad. It was our last game so we wanted to give it everything we had. We knew how sweet it would feel to win again," said Lydon, a Grade 11 scoring dynamo who corralled the Colts with a team-high five three-balls and 29 points.
The championship triumph was the 32nd win in 44 games by the Skyhawks, following their historic 34-5 campaign last year as the first St. Albert varsity women's basketball team to win provincials as well as go undefeated in the metro Edmonton premier conference.
"Last year was amazing but this year was just as great, too," said Shelby Hucul, a standout Grade 12 guard and prized recruit by the Alberta Pandas. "Last year we weren't really expecting anything. We just worked extremely hard all year and we managed to pull it off at the end. This year it was kind of the same thing, especially working hard and we definitely did that all year."
Five Skyhawks — Hucul, Lydon, Katie Burak, Zoe Downing and Stephanie Gartner — played in last year's final, 56-48 against the Magrath Pandas.
"We came out and played great games both years as a team," Hucul said of the rare feat of consecutive 3A provincial championships. "We're just so excited to be where we are right now."
Head coach John Dedrick said this year's championship was extra special.
"We were the defending champs from last year and we were premier champs, too, so we had a higher level of expectation and a target on us throughout the course of the year," he said. "We also lost six pretty important players from last year so we had to have other girls really step up and kind of fill the void and they did. I'm very proud of the way they performed."
Gunning for Colts
The second-seeded Skyhawks had their sights set on the Colts after falling 78-69 to McCoy in the final of the 3A-level tournament in Wetaskiwin. The result dropped the Skyhawks from their season-long status as the number-one 3A team in Alberta into second place, while the Colts surpassed them on the leader board.
"We were all pretty pissed about the first time we lost to them so we wanted to beat them even more than any other team," Lydon said of the Skyhawks' 11th defeat this season.
Playing the Colts for the gold was too good to be true for the emotionally charged Skyhawks.
"There was some nervous energy but it was more like excitement. Not only did we get to where we wanted to be, but we had the opportunity to play against them again because we felt we didn't do as good as we could've the first time," said Haley England, a Grade 11 post and first-year Skyhawk.
A plethora of fouls, plus giveaways in the fourth quarter, were the Skyhawks' downfall in the first showdown between the top two 3A contenders.
"That loss definitely made us want to beat them more. We wanted to play our hardest and show what we could do because the first time we played them we didn't do that," England said.
In the final, after a see-saw first quarter that ended with the Skyhawks in front 21-19, they gradually pulled away from the Colts with Big Mo on their side.
"We played our game instead of playing to their level of ball," Hucul said. "We came out more aggressive than when we played them before. We really pushed the ball and we worked really hard, too."
Dedrick pointed to several key areas in the rematch that put the Skyhawks on top.
"Shelby being healthy was a huge factor. Number four [Cierra Matsalla] for them dominated the game when we lost to them in Wetaskiwin. Shelby's job was basically to try and contain her and make her work extremely hard and she did an awesome job of that. She just didn't get the same types of looks and the same types of runs at the basket that she got in Wetaskiwin when Shelby wasn't healthy," he explained. "They were really keying on Zoe [Downing] too, because Zoe had shot the ball pretty well in Wetaskiwin. Zoe didn't panic and didn't force a lot of shots and that opened it up big time for Kendall. She was very dominating in terms of controlling the flow of the game and making sure people got the ball in the right spots.
"They often had number four, their best defender, on Zoe, which obviously worked out in our favour as well."
During a decisive 12-point run by the Skyhawks in the second quarter to extend the lead to 31-21, Hayley Warmington converted a steal into a layup and added three foul shots. The Grade 11 forward and Paul Kane transfer student turned in a strong performance with 11 points.
"She played outstanding defence and took the ball to the hole really hard. That was huge for us," Dedrick said.
Turning point
Leading by six at halftime on the strength of four three-balls and 18 points by Lydon, the Skyhawks ratcheted up the pressure for a commanding 63-45 advantage after three quarters.
"During the whole year the third quarter had been the thing that we struggled with the most but we came out and made a statement," said England, a dominating figure in the paint with 12 points from several thread-the-needle passes by her teammates.
The Colts missed a ton of shots in the 10-minute frame and the Skyhawks diligently gobbled up the rebounds.
"We really controlled the boards against them, even though they're a lot bigger than we are," said England, 16, who played for the Morinville Wolves at last year's provincials.
Her stuff under the Skyhawks' basket paved the way for a three-ball by Warmington to make it 49-38 midway through the third quarter.
Later on in the quarter, the Skyhawks pretty much sealed the deal with consecutive field goals by Hucul and a bucket by England, forcing the Colts to call a time out with 3:17 on the clock. After a jumper by Hucul, she later stole the ball from the Colts and deposited it through the hoop. England followed with tough inside move for points that left the Colts reeling, trailing by 16.
"In the third quarter we started getting a few baskets in a row and we got a lot of stops on defence and that was the turning point," said Lydon, who closed out the scoring in the quarter with her last three-ball of the night to widen the gap to 63-45. "All game we played great defence. Our help defence was a lot better than it had been before."
In the last period Lydon went 4-for-8 from the charity stripe and added a bucket as the Skyhawks maintain their healthy lead.
With one minute remaining, Hucul deposited a nifty pass from Lydon that put the Colts down by eight.
"We definitely played like a team the whole game. We were helping each other a lot," Hucul said.
A number of unsung Skyhawks rose to the challenge in the big game.
"We got our normal hard-nose efforts from Katie Burak and Paige Knull. They did what they did all year," Dedrick said of the forward duo that banged bodies with gusto. "We played Amber [Easthope] in limited minutes but when she was on the floor she was very productive. She didn't throw the ball away, had a couple of steals and drew a charge [in the fourth quarter, and the Skyhawks ahead by 13]. It was the first charge she had ever taken for us because she jumps so high to try and block everything."
Elite program
The Skyhawks tipped-off the 12-team draw with an 86-49 decision against the 10th seeded Chestermere Lakers, the host team at provincials. In the semifinals the Skyhawks downed sixth-seeded George MacDougall of Airdrie 66-47.
The second consecutive gold medal marked the seventh trip in a row to provincials for the Skyhawks, and their fifth straight appearance as the Edmonton zone champions.
"It definitely says something about our program and how amazing our coaches [Dedrick and assistant Paige Gaudreau] are," Hucul said. "To win two in a row proves all the hard work they put in all year paid off."
The Skyhawks were also provincial bronze medallists in 2008.
"We're becoming a little bit of a model of consistency in terms of how our program is maintaining its level of competitiveness and we're very proud of that," Dedrick said.
