Basketball season is barely a month old but the St. Thomas Aquinas senior girls have already managed to cram a lot of surprising success through the hoop.
The Fighting Saints started the year off by scoring bronze at the prestigious Telus Basketball Classic back in early December, beating their crosstown rivals from Windsor secondary in the consolation final held at UBC's War Memorial Gym.
STA rolled into the semifinals but their quest for gold at the tournament was halted by the world-beating Brookswood Bobcats, the No. 1 team in the provincial AAA rankings. The Saints rebounded to beat their AA rivals from Windsor 59-58 in overtime to take home bronze.
STA then followed up that success by beating AAA powerhouse Handsworth 49-42 in a North Shore premier league game. STA head coach Anthony Beyrouti had a hard time recalling the last time the Fighting Saints had knocked off the Royals, one of the most successful programs in the province.
"First time in probably 20 years," he said. "At least 20 years, maybe more."
Next STA took their show on the road, spending their holiday break in Brooklyn where they got to practise on the home court of the Brooklyn Nets before winning all three of their games in a local tournament.
The team then returned home to another first - a No. 1 provincial ranking. The Saints will have a chance to reinforce that ranking this Thursday, Friday and Saturday when several of the top-ranked girls teams hit the court for a tournament hosted by STA.
The Saints will open the tournament Thursday at 12:45 p.m. with a game against Little Flower Academy. Windsor and St. Thomas More, two more of the top-ranked AA teams in the province, will also take part along with AAA powerhouse Argyle. Terry Fox, Carson Graham, and Charles Best round out the tournament's roll call.
"It's a big deal," said Beyrouti. "The top three (AA) teams in the province are coming. That's pretty cool.. .. It'll be bumping in there for sure."
Semifinals are scheduled for 10:45 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. of Friday with the final tipping off at 5:45 p.m. Saturday.
Once the tournament is over STA will get back to work in the North Shore premier league with their sights set on a couple of big tournaments on the horizon: the B.C. Catholics and the provincial AA championships.
The Catholic championship, hosted by Holy Cross Jan. 15-18, is always a highlight of the STA season, said Beyrouti.
"It'll be a jungle in there. Last year I think the firefighters had to cap the number of people - there were too many people in the building. It's a pretty cool atmosphere."
Once the provincial AA championships roll around in early March the Saints will be looking to erase some disappointing memories from 2013 when they made a run to the provincial semifinals but dropped their final two games to finish in fourth.
The team is led by Grade 12 point guard Vanessa Botteselle who has shown she can come up big in important games - she scored 24 points with 10 rebounds, seven assists and three steals as STA lost 54-53 to Vernon secondary in last year's provincial bronze game.
Other key Grade 12 pieces on the senior-heavy roster include post player Angela Clarke and twin wing players Kate and Claire Mockler, crossover volleyball star Kathleen
Konar and defensive stopper Valerie Schmidt.
"We've got a lot of kids who are really contributing right now. It's more of a team effort than it is a singular effort," said Beyrouti. "Defensively we're very strong, we play tough as a team. It's more of a team game than it is an individual game for us because we don't have any big time stars on our team. The other team usually has a player who is better than our best player but we as a group kind of compete as a whole better. It's more of a team-focused, defensive effort kind of thing that we've got going."
The Saints will get all they can handle this season playing in the North Shore premier league against the likes of Handsworth and Argyle.
"We don't have any easy games," said Beyrouti. "Everything is hard, we're battling every day. It's not easy, ever. The kids are putting in the time and they get to be challenged every day that we play."
The closest rival, however, will likely be Windsor. While the Saints topped the Dukes in overtime at the Telus Classic, Windsor returned the favour a few weeks later when they scored a twopoint win in regular season action.
The two teams could battle again in this weekend's tournament and will have another league matchup Jan. 21 at STA. Following that there could be playoff battles as well as a possible meeting at provincials.
"It's going to be a war all the way down to the end of the season for sure," said Beyrouti of the healthy Windsor-STA rivalry. "They've got a lot of athletes. They've got a couple of players that can really, really play.. .. It's a good rivalry that we've got going right now."
The path already appears to be laid out for the two North Shore AA powerhouses on the road to provincials, but Beyrouti was quick to add that his team is not going to get ahead of itself.
"We just need to make sure we take care of business every day and we go to practice and work hard," he said. "Hopefully at the end of the year all of that stuff takes care of itself and we'll be in a good position to win a championship."
