THUNDER BAY – The Hammarskjold Vikings are a win away from a trip to provincials.
The Vikings scored a lopsided 58-21 home-court win on Friday afternoon over the visiting NORWASSA champion Fort Frances Muskies to capture Game 1 of their best-of-three regional final, led by 16 points from Danielle Charles.
Hammarskjold also got 14 points, all in the first half, from Amy Stieh, who dominated the boards at both ends of the court.
It was a pretty good effort, said Stieh, whose team will need to win one of two games on Saturday to advance to the OFSSAA championship round.
“It’s was a very good game. We worked our butts off, for sure,” she said.
“We worked super hard on our defence and our coach says that offence will always come. We can make those shots when we need them, but if we don’t play good defence we’ll never win the game. So we always grind and work super hard on defence and put 110 per cent on our defence – and the offence follows.”
The two teams stayed pretty tight for much of the opening quarter, the Muskies and Vikings trading baskets twice in the first few minutes of play.
However, Hammarskjold began to pull away late in the first, sparked by a Hana Whalen three that upped the score to 11-6. The Vikings increased their lead to 16-8 after one, then rolled through a dominant second quarter, outscoring their Northwestern Ontario rival 21-4, including a 13-0 run that was finally broken up by an Andrea Schram bucket. Hammarskjold closed the quarter on a 8-0 streak.
Whalen, who was kept in check for most of the first half, responded with eight in the third and finished with 13, Vikings coach Bruno Corbin turning over the ball to his bench late in the quarter
Charles, who hit the last-minute game-winning shot on Monday night to earn Hammarskjold a spot in the NWOSSAA final, said her team had no idea what Fort Frances might bring to the court.
That made it tough to prepare, she said.
“We didn’t really know what to expect with this team. We really still had to work hard to make it happen,” Charles said.
“It’s difficult. We knew they were good, but we didn’t know how good.”
Getting the win is a great start.
“It boosted our confidence lots, but we really need to work hard tomorrow to make it happen again.”
Game 2 is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Hammarskjold gym.