The F.H. Collins Warriors have pulled off a perfect season. All the check marks are in the ‘W’ column.
To the victors go the spoils.
The Warriors took gold in the senior girls division of the Yukon High School Basketball Championships at Porter Creek Secondary on Saturday. The last time F.H. Collins won the title was in 2012.
“I’m really proud of my girls, they put in a lot of time and they worked really hard,” said Warriors head coach Tyler Bradford. “They’ve been a tremendous defensive team all season and they really worked with that. We’d really like to thank all the coaches they’ve worked with, Sarah Crane, Deidre Davidson, Nicole Schroeder, who have all put in a lot of time helping these girls get better.”
The Warriors won gold with a 67-38 win over the Vanier Crusaders, the same team the Warriors downed for the Whitehorse Super Hoops title two weeks ago.
The Warriors led the entire game, jumping out to an 8-0 lead following the tip-off.
Their full-court press was relentless.
“We wanted to come out strong with a strong defensive effort and put the game away early, and I feel like we did a pretty good job of that,” said Bradford.
F.H. Collins players stepped up when the team needed it. Jacy Sam rose to the occasion when fellow starters Sam Burgis, Jaylene Kelly and captain Quynh Nguyen were out of commission early in the championship.
Sam, who is in Grade 11 with a year to go in high school, was named championship MVP.
“Jacy played a great game, the whole tournament was fantastic and today she played really well,” said Bradford. “Last week she kept us in the game against Vanier with Quynh and Sam and Jaylene all out. She was fantastic again today.
“She’s really developed as a player over the season.”
While Sam still has a season to go, captain Nguyen has reached the end of her high school career.
“We had a great run, played really well as a team. We work really hard in practice, which I think shows in the games,” said Nguyen, the Super Hoops MVP.
“We did what we did in practice, applied what we learned and came out hard,” she said of the final. “We played hard and hustled.”
Warriors’ Galina Roots led the team with 22 points in the final while Nguyen and Sam had 17 and 15, respectively. All three will play for Yukon next week at the Arctic Winter Games in Fairbanks, Alaska.
“Galina always gets open, sees the court very well,” said Nguyen.
Amy Hannon-Beattie led Vanier with 11 points. Kelly Mahoney had 10 and captain Linsey Eby had six.
The Porter Creek Rams, last season’s Yukon champs, took the bronze in the senior girls - Grade 10/11/12 - division over the weekend.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com
Championship All-Stars
Kelly Mahoney (Crusaders)
Quynh Nguyen (Warriors)
Kennedy Cairns-Locke (Rams)
Galina Roots (Warriors)
Linsey Eby (Crusaders)
MVP
Jacy Sam (Warriors)