Irish come up short at SOSSA
Jamira Rousseau emptied her tank in an attempt to extend her high school career for at least a couple of more games.
The 16-year-old, Grade 12 student poured in a team-leading 19 points and was a force at both ends of the court, but it wasn’t enough as the Notre Dame Fighting Irish dropped a 68-46 decision to the Westdale Warriors in the SOSSA AAA senior girls basketball final at Notre Dame.
It marked the second straight Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association championship for the Warriors, who also captured an OFSAA (Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations) crown last season.
Rousseau was well aware of what was on the line.
“With this being my last year, I think I did the best I could to contribute to the team,” Rousseau said.
Rousseau paused for a second when asked what she is going to miss the most about playing basketball at Notre Dame.
“I’m going to miss the friendships, everyone coming to watch my games, everything really,” she said.
Irish head coach Agi Mete loves what Rousseau brings to the court.
“She is just as good on offence as she is on defence,” he said. “She’s a leader. At the end of the day, her composure kind of calms things down for everyone which is important because we’re young.”
Rousseau was at her best in the second half as she poured in 16 of her 19 points as the Irish went on a brief run.
“It felt good,” said Rousseau, who plans to attend Niagara College next year. “If felt nice to see the team work well together and play to the best of their ability and not getting down on themselves.”
Rousseau was proud of how the Irish handled being underdogs.
“At the beginning we didn’t know they were defending champions,” she said. “We literally found out when we were warming up and we saw their (championship) hoodies.
“We just thought to give it our all and that’s what we did. We tried our best.”
Mete couldn’t help but wonder what might have been had the Irish hit a few more shots and centre Emily Foest not gone down with an ankle injury and miss the entire second half.
“We can’t complain about our offensive looks — we had a lot of great looks,” he said. We got it down to 11 and then Jamir got hurt (finger late in the game) and we lost Emily with her ankle and that doesn’t help either.
“They hit a lot of shots. They’re a good shooting team and I knew that. We certainly aren’t afraid to shoot the ball, we just needed a couple of more here and there to slow tempo down, but we didn’t get it. We made a little bit of a run there and that was fun to do.”
SEMIFINALS
Irish 75 Thunder 51
Rousseau poured in 25 while Alissa Mete added 22 and Foest nine as the Irish defeated the Blessed Trinity Thunder in semifinal action earlier in the day.
“We got up 15 or 16 and then they made a little run in the third to get it down to four and then we got recomposed and hit a bunch of shots,” Agi Mete said. “Our shots were falling and they’re a good shooting team as well. In terms of getting ready for this game (final) I knew that was a good set up because they like to shoot the ball.”
Ella Muraca had 21 and Lexia Poitras 12 for the Thunder.
Warriors 62 Bulldogs 55
The Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs came up just short versus the Warriors in the other semifinal.
Kailey DeMont paced SWC with 14 while Ally Sentance added 13.
“The girls came into game confident but scared to lose and that they knew Westdale was a tough team,” Sir Winston coach Frank Keltos said. “Our nerves got the best of us most of the game missing probably 10 open layups.
“I give them credit as they hit shots from kids we didn’t think would be major factors. I told girls that they won the game. They were the better team today and we need to learn to control our emotions and just play the game.”
The Bulldogs ended the season 25-4 with all four losses to AAA schools who are heading to OFSAA.
STATS PACK
Warriors 68 Irish 46
Mick and Angelo’s/Johnny Rocco’s, Cracker Jacks Player of the Game: Amy Stinson for Westdale with 19 points and Jamira Rousseau for Notre Dame with 19 points.
Westdale Warriors: Amy Stinson 19.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish: Rousseau 19; Alissa Mete 10; Emily Foest 8.
Up next: The Warriors advance to the OFSAA AAA championships next week
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