Familiar faces everywhere at all-star game
Ally Sentance had one last chance to play a high school game with and against many familiar faces Wednesday night.
The Grade 11 student at Sir Winston Churchill delivered a performance those familiar faces have long come to expect from the talented guard. The 16-year-old scored 15 points to help Team North (Zone 4) record a 63-44 victory over Team South (Zone 3) in the Top 10 game of the 15th Annual Niagara Girls All-Star Games played at St Catharines Collegiate. She was named Team North’s player of the game for her efforts.
“It is a lot of my friends’ last year and it felt really good to play against them and with them,” she said. “I am honoured that I was chosen as MVP and I liked playing with everyone I played with.”
The top 10 game included four of Sentance’s teammates from when she started playing travel ball a year up in Grade 1 with the Pelham Panthers and a further six teammates from a Niagara Rangers squad that won a Ontario Basketball Association Division 1 championship in 2016. Most her current teammates on the Niagara Juel squad were also chosen for the game.
“My career started when I was younger with most of these girls and I ended with most of them on my team,” Sentance said. “It’s kind of amazing to see how we have all grown up together in the same community and that we all stuck with the game because we love it.”
In addition to playing Niagara Joel, Sentance has been offered a spot on next summer’s Kia Nurse under-17 squad. She played with the under-16 squad in the summer of 2019.
“I am hoping over next summer that I will get a look because I really want to go to the States and play Division 1,” she said. “I am really trying and working hard in basketball and school, I am doing my SATs and doing everything I can to get where I want to go.
“I just hope it all pays off soon.”
On the court, she is continuing to refine her skills.
“Over last summer, I developed my shot a bit more and I am more consistent and confident with it,” she said. “I think I pass the ball well and I like to see my teammates succeed. When they make a shot, I feel good.”
She is also learning when to gamble and when to avoid fouls.
“I realized I need to be a little more smart about it because I used to take a lot of silly fouls,” Sentance said. “I can still be the same aggressive defender and get the same steals without throwing myself all over the place and hurting myself.”
Also scoring for Team North were Eden’s Madalyn Weinart (16), Governor Simcoe’s Allison Addy (7), Denis Morris’ Jordyn Britton (6), Eden’s Avery Cushing (5), Holy Cross’ Calleigh Cunningham (5), Sir Winston Churchill’s Olivia Krieger (5), Blessed Trinity’s Ella Muraca (2) and Blessed Trinity’s Madison O’Brien (2)
Selected to the team but unable to play were Sir Winston Churchill’s Kaley DeMont and Denis Morris’ Lexxus Bell.
A total of $650 in proceeds from the games were donated to Gillian’s Place.
