Eden off to a flying start
Shorleigh Burrows was in the zone Tuesday.
The 16-year-old, Grade 11 student poured in 33 points to lead the Eden Flyers past the visiting Ridley Tigers 61-25 in opening-round action at the BPSN Girls Basketball Tournament.
Burrows was thrilled to be able to come through on offence.
“Yeah, that was pretty exciting, especially when your shots are dropping,” Burrows said. “I’ve been off in my shooting, but I had a good game.”
Burrows has had a tough start to the season until a game recently where she rediscovered her touch.
“I played against Sir Winston the other day and it was pretty good, but before that game I wasn’t really hitting much,” she said. “It felt really good.”
Burrows would love nothing more than to see the Flyers keep on winning this week.
“We’re definitely hoping to get to the finals. We think we can. It would feel even better if we could get a win out of it,” she said.
Burrows said the game plan versus the Tigers was simple.
“We just knew that we wanted to go out and make sure that we knew what we were doing and just play as a team and work hard, no matter who we were playing,” she said.
Eden coach Jonathan Thorpe said Burrows’ outburst couldn’t have come at a better time.
“That was the best game she (Burrows) had all season,” Thorpe said. “It’s a short season, we’ve only had five or six games, but that’s the best she’s played so far.”
Burrows and Katie DeVries, who also had a strong game with 15 points, give the Flyers a formidable backcourt.
“Between her and Kate, I feel like either one of them can could really give us a lot of points any given game. Today it was Shorleigh and I hope that keeps going for her,” Thorpe said.
The fourth-ranked Flyers jumped out to a 24-5 lead after one quarter.
“We got everybody a lot of minutes in, which was good,” Thorpe said. “Probably the most significant thing that we wanted to work on was making sure we weren’t rushing offensively, that we were running what we were supposed to be running, taking our time and making sure we got good shots.
“You don’t want to burn anybody out, but the bench gets shorter as games get harder, so we wanted to make sure we got everybody plenty minutes today.”
STATS PACK
Flyers 61 Tigers 25
Cat’s Caboose Player Of the Game: Eden guard Shorleigh Burrows with 33 points.
Eden Flyers: Shorleigh Burrows 33; Katie DeVries 15; Adlai Cavicchia 6; Hannah McGugan 3; Ella McMaster 2; Sakura Luciow 2.
Ridley Tigers: Natume Masturah 9; Natasha Mattocks 4; Rebecca Samano Santos 3; Nadia Trites 2; Coco Reynolds 2; Cindy Zheng 2; Toni Osamiluyi 2; Angela Jiao 1.
The tournament is made possible with the help of Women Networking in Sports of Niagara, Tora Inc., Ridley College, Alltech Automotive, St. Catharines CYO Basketball, Pelham Panthers basketball, Niagara Falls Red Raiders basketball, the Niagara District Referees Association, the District School Board of Niagara and the Niagara Catholic District School Board.
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