It seems that these two basketball teams - the Windsor Dukes and St. Thomas Aquinas Fighting Saints - could play for years and years and never be separated by more than a couple of points.
The perfectly balanced contest, however, had to end at some point and, when it finally did - in overtime, of course, in the senior girls AA provincial final - it was the Dukes who finally pushed ahead.
The two North Vancouver rivals met five times before Saturday's final with each game finishing with a winning margin of three points or less. Saturday at the Langley Events Centre, after both teams breezed through the best of the rest in the province to make the final, they battled again through 14 lead changes and six ties until Windsor had the good fortune of holding the lead at the right time to claim a 69-64 overtime win.
"You can't get much closer than that," said Windsor head coach Peter Sprogis.
"They hit some shots, we didn't have the answers," said STA head coach Anthony Beyrouti of the fiveminute overtime period. "If the game had gone on for another five minutes we would have been right back in it. We just ran out of time."
The matchup pitted a deep STA team that cycled up to 10 players in and out of the lineup against a Windsor team that played with a much shorter bench. All five of his starters, in fact, ended up playing more than 40 minutes in the final due to the overtime, said Sprogis. The key to the win was getting them to crunch time with enough energy to finish off the job.
The team's big three of Ariella London, Brooklyn Legault and Sherrie Errico did have enough left in the tank to make huge shots to erase a seven-point deficit in the fourth quarter to send it to overtime - surviving a last-second shot from STA that rimmed out - and then pull away in the extra period.
"The biggest thing that won it for us was the composure of the team and its determination," said Sprogis. "We scored some important shots with about three minutes to go and from then on they started fouling us. Unfortunately they kept fouling people who could make foul shots."
Errico, a Grade 12 point guard who was named the tournament's MVP, led the way for the Dukes with 25 points in the final, including a number of huge free throws late in the fourth quarter and in overtime.
"She's just a winner.
She really is," said Sprogis of Errico, who is on her way to the University of Victoria next season to play with the Vikes. "She has ice in her blood. She doesn't crack."
Legault added 13 points and 13 rebounds in the final while London chipped in 11 points, coming back to hit some big shots after a scary fall that saw her hit her head on the court while trying to take a charge. Both Legault and London were named to the tournament's first all-star team.
The Dukes also got important contributions from Chantal Cummings who did the dirty work, grabbing 14 rebounds in the final, and Joana Rocosa, an exchange student from Barcelona who scored 12 points in the win.
STA was led by star point guard Vanessa Botteselle, who dropped 20 in the final, and forward Angela Clarke, who scored 18. Both were named to the first all-star team while forward Amelia Williams earned second team honours.
The Fighting Saints fell just short in the final but they should hold their heads high, said Beyrouti.
"We put a lot in front of the kids and they really stepped up," he said. "I told the kids before the game, all I want is all you got. They gave me that and more. Sometimes it's not enough, but that's all I asked for so it was perfect."
The Windsor and STA rivalry came to a boil this season but it actually goes back five years - these two squads have been battling it out since Grade 8. Windsor has had strong basketball programs for a long time but this particular group of players brought STA - traditionally a volleyball powerhouse - up to that high level in basketball as well, said Beyrouti.
"They've broken every school record there is on the basketball side," he said. "It's a culture shift at our school that has never happened. Usually the volleyball kids just want to play volleyball. For the first time ever we had volleyball kids who wanted to play basketball."
As for Sprogis, this year was an eye-opening one for an old basketball junkie. The former CIS and European professional league player and coach said he has not been involved in basketball for the past 25 years but took on the Windsor team this season, jumping into an incredible rivalry.
"It's been quite an experience," he said with a laugh. "I helped (Windsor) get some revenge. Some of the parents of my team were over the moon because of this rivalry."
This was also the first time he has ever coached girls, said Sprogis, and he was very impressed by what he saw from the Dukes.
"I can't describe the words for what I feel for them and what they accomplished," he said. "They have to take that throughout their lives because they accomplished something a lot of people didn't think we could do. To show such composure under such pressure for young girls, it's tough. I've seen grown men - top players, in Europe and even in the NBA - who choke. These girls did not choke.. .. Based on what they did, they need to be proud and carry this accomplishment with them throughout their lives. In my own personal experience, moments like this in a young life can really change a person. It makes them feel that maybe anything and everything is possible."
