Bulldogs want to earn OFSAA berth
Megan Barker is loving her final year of Sir Winston Churchill high school basketball.
“I have played with coach (Frank) Keltos since Grade 2 and playing for him is amazing,” Barker said Thursday, after scoring 16 points to lead the Bulldogs to an 82-10 victory over the Eden Flyers in the Niagara Region High School Athletic Association Zone 4 AAA senior girls final.
“I love the team and the girls are great, especially this game. We had a bunch of players get their first threes and even though we were winning by a lot it is so amazing because this might me one of the last games we play. We have such a great bench and a great team and I might come back next year just because of the atmosphere that we have.”
The Bulldogs are hosting the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations’ AAA championships Nov. 25 and 26 and get an automatic bid but Barker is not overly happy with that.
“I would rather work for it because I missed out on SOSSA (Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association) last year (2019) because I had a broken ankle,” the 17-year-old said. “It is amazing that we get to go to OFSAA and our team has worked really hard but we are still very dedicated to earning our spot and beating the Catholics in the first crossover (semifinal) at SOSSA.”
Barker used to play travel basketball but switched over to volleyball after breaking her leg. She is taking this year off from club sports to focus on her academics.
The Grade 12 student is looking forward to OFSAA.
“It is going to be great. We have a great team and a great mentality. We all work so well together and we have so much fun.”
Keltos enjoys getting a chance to coach Barker again.
“She’s athletic, long and smart and not the fastest but she is quick,” he said. “She does a lot of little things, she gets tips and she is aggressive to the hoop. And she can shoot the three if we need her to.”
Keltos and the Bulldogs now head to SOSSA with the goal of earning their spot at OFSAA.
“It’s always nice to win your way in not just because we accepted to host” he said. “It wasn’t to get in, it was to make sure it would happen. We were hoping to get to OFSAA and OFSAA came to us.
“We are hoping we can improve our seeding by winning SOSSA and then see what happens from there.”
The Bulldogs went 6-0 in Zone 4 regular season play, including a 73-18 win over Eden, and outscored their opponents 403-120.
The Bulldogs’ lone taste of adversity came Oct. 28 in a 55-36 victory at Governor Simcoe.
“They came out playing hard and hot and they hit a bunch of prayers that went in. We shot absolutely horrific and we must have been 1-20 in the first half from three,” he said. “We were really bad.”
It has been a most unusual year for girls basketball with no tournaments being played because of health and safety concerns related to COVID. Churchill has played its six league games this fall compared to normal years when it would have played a longer regular season and competed in at least four tournaments.
“Sometimes you are coming in to the zone finals hot and sometimes you are coming in banged up. But knock on wood, we are not banged up,” Keltos said.
The odd season has required a different approach.
“It has been a lot of management and keeping them focused on what the end goal is,” he said. “Normally we are playing two games a week or more and boys volleyball is in there and you are trying to figure out when the gym is available. We would be lucky to get in two practices a week. Normally our practices are the first 10 days of the school year and then you are using games as practices. Now we are practising three or four times a week and we are getting one game.”
Keltos likes his team.
“We have a really strong starting five and we had four girls who can come off the bench and contribute. We are deep and our top six players all play or played at a high level of club ball.”
Eden went 2-3 in regular season play and came into the championship game banged up with three starters out with injuries.
“We had a team of 14 and we finished the season with a team of eight,” Eden head coach Katie Winger said.
Winger would have loved to have all her players available but was more than happy with her team’s performance Thursday.
“The team that I do have they always give their all no matter what and regardless of who was hurt I am still super proud of how they performed today.”
Winger was pleased with her team’s season.
“We had our ups and downs but after the year these girls have had, for them to come out and give me their all every single day, that is all that I could ask for.”
STATS PACK
Bulldogs 82 Flyers 10
Cat’s Caboose Player of the Game: Churchill’s Megan Barker with 16 points.
For the Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs: Barker 16; Brookelyn Keltos 14; Yemi Oladipo 14; Reese Bolibruck 12; Kate Smyth 8; Erin Short 7; Sam Cormier 5; Sarah Ben Onrone 4; Paige Cook 1.
For the Eden Flyers: Leah Shouten 2; Hannah Bennett 2; Olivia Davidson 2; Emily Klassen 2; Taylor Anderson 2.
Up next: The Bulldogs advance to the SOSSA AAA championships Thursday in Saltfleet.
