St. Lawrence Vikings opened the Ontario Colleges Athletics Association women’s basketball championship tournament in Toronto Thursday night with a 55-41 win over the Fanshawe Falcons.
The victory puts St. Lawrence into the semifinals of the eight-team tournament Friday night against the Mohawk Mountaineers. Mohawk advanced with a 79-56 win Thursday over the host Centennial Colts.
Both teams appeared to be in the grip of some serious jitters in the first quarter, a period when the teams combined to score just 11 points that ended with the Vikings leading 7-4.
St. Lawrence, 15-1 in the regular season and the first-place team in the East division, began to break the game open in the second quarter, leading by as much as 21-9 at one point, but the Vikings got into some foul trouble and Fanshawe, the fourth-place team from the West that was 13-6 coming into the game, took advantage, reducing the deficit to six points at halftime.
The Vikings, however, never gave up the lead.
Sammy Gourdier led St. Lawrence with 13 points and six rebounds. Lacey Knox scored 10 points and pulled down 18 rebounds.
Mohawk finished second in the West division, with a 16-2 record. The Mountaineers and Vikings did not meet this year.
In Friday's other semifinal, Algonquin, 65-49 winner over St. Clair, will face Humber. The Hawks defeated Niagara 64-58.
