Rideau District Lions will play in the semifinals tomorrow, but the La Salle Black Knights are coming home from their Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations girls basketball championship.
The Lions needed overtime to dispose of Timmins O’Gorman, 54-49, in a quarter-final at the single-A tournament Friday night in Windsor. At the AA competition in Kingsville, however, the Knights were eliminated by a 43-38 defeat at the hands of Wallaceburg.
As a result of their victory, the Lions will play the winner of Friday night’s Jean Vanier-Ridley quarter-final in a semifinal Saturday morning at 10 o’clock.
Rideau, the No. 4 seed at the tournament, led throughout its game with No. 5 O’Gorman: 11-7 after the first quarter, 20-14 at halftime and 35-24 going into the fourth quarter. In the final period, however, O’Gorman outscored the Eastern Ontario champions 19-8, to tie the game and force overtime.
In the extra period, the Lions, undefeated in three games at the tournament, outscored the Timmins school 11-6.
Leah Rice scored 23 points to lead the Rideau attack, while Emma Weltz led all scorers with 25 points for O’Gorman, which suffered its first loss of the championship.
Earlier Friday, the Lions got 11 points apiece from Rice and Clevelyn Naim as they defeated Rainy River 54-28. Rideau scored 20 points in the first quarter, taking a 13-point lead, and the Lions won going away.
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La Salle, meanwhile, fought back from a 10-point (22-12) deficit at halftime to close within a single point, 28-27, by three-quarter time, but Wallaceburg, the No. 3 seed, ultimately withstood the challenge. Sawyer Fischer led the winners with 14 points, while Abbey Hetherington scored 11 for La Salle, which won one of its three games at the tournament.
Earlier Friday, the Black Knights, seeded 12th at the competition, rebounded from a first-round defeat with a 39-27 win over Patrick Fogarty of Orillia. Hetherington scored 14 points for the Knights, who trailed 15-14 at the end of the first quarter, led 26-24 at halftime, and put the game away in the fourth quarter, where they outscored Fogarty 13-3.
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Despite a 17-point performance by Jenna Whalen, Holy Cross was eliminated in the second round of the AAA championship in Windsor by a 41-26 defeat at the hands of St. Catharines Winston Churchill. The Crusaders, first-round winners who were seeded 14th, bowed to a Churchill team that was seeded 1th but had lost its opening game.
Holy Cross was unable to sustain a comeback that saw the Crusaders rally from an 11-4 first-quarter deficit to trail by just a point, 15-14, at halftime. They ultimately succumbed to a 13-5 third quarter.