Knights bring home bronze
The Niagara College Knights women’s basketball team claimed its second Ontario Colleges Athletic Association bronze medal in the past three years with a 67-62 victory over St. Clair Sunday at Lambton.
“It went pretty good. That Lambton team that won the gold is really good and we kind of ran into a steamroller a bit in the semifinal,” Niagara head coach Chris Rao said. “We regrouped and played really well in the bronze-medal game and that is not easy to do. It was nice to walk away from bronze. ”
Recovering from the semifinal loss was a challenge.
“It is such a rollercoaster of emotions. You go from devastated, your seniors are sad and everyone is upset that you no longer have a chance to play for a national championship or a gold medal,” he said. “You have to regroup and play for a bronze medal the next day that doesn’t feel like it means as much but it still means a lot to our program and what we are trying to do.”
Niagara was relegated to the bronze medal game after falling 65-50 to the host and eventual champions from Lambton.
Against St. Clair, Niagara built quarter leads of 17-12, 32-21 and 46-37.
Leading the way for the Knights were: Janee Harrison with 14 points and 20 rebounds; Griffin Lack-Shane with 12 points; Destiny Osadebamwen with 11 points and six rebounds; Molly Taylor with nine points and 12 boards; Niagara College Female Athlete of the Week Jamira Rousseau with eight points, eight assists and six rebounds; and, Lexxus Bell with eight points and five rebounds.
Mitchell was injured in the semifinal and unable to play in the bronze medal game.
“I am proud of our team’s ability to stay focused, move on and get ready for the next day,” he said.
Against Lambton, Niagara faced quarter deficits 22-13, 42-25 and 59-36.
Top performers for Niagara were: Harrison with 13 points and nine rebounds; Osadebamwen with nine points and 16 rebounds; Lack-Shane with nine points; Rousseau and Taryn Mitchell with six points; and, Taylor with five points and eight rebounds.
“I think we sold ourselves a little bit short in the Lambton game. I don’t think we put forth the type of effort we were prepared to give but we definitely gave it the next day,” Rao said.
Taylor, Mitchell and Emma Fraser will all be lost to graduation.
Mitchell and Taylor are starters and the first Niagara College women’s basketball players since 1984 to leave with two OCAA medals.
“Those are two pretty big ones (leaving) but we have a lot of talent and lots of recruits here that we are going to be announcing pretty soon,” Rao said. “There are some older girls who have played at different levels and recruiting is still going pretty well. It is an exciting time. We are still building towards something.”
