Olds High School's senior girls basketball team won the Pool C bracket at the ASAA 3A Provincial Championship held at the Ralph Klein Centre this past weekend.
In their final game of the tournament, the Spartans defeated the No. 9-ranked Bowness Trojans 62-56 in an overtime thriller on March 20.
With under a minute left in the fourth quarter, OHS found itself down 51-47.
The comeback started with a three-pointer by Kayley Watt, leaving 15.8 seconds left on the clock.
"I didn't know if that was going in or not. I just hoped it would. When you get something like that, it really boosts the team up again. It gives us that renewed energy and helps everyone get going again," Watt said.
Bowness tried inbounding from half court but Janelle Graham picked off the pass, raced down the floor and made a layup while getting fouled with 12 seconds left. She missed the freethrow, but Olds was up 52-51.
The Spartans made one final stop on the last possession of the game. The buzzer sounded. The girls started hugging on the floor.
That lasted until the referees called a shooting foul on OHS, put 0.9 seconds back on the clock and Trojans guard Mikyla Fisk on the freethrow line with a chance to win the game.
Fisk split the two freethrows and the game headed to overtime.
"That was a bogus call to begin with. There was no time left on the clock and then they put time on and they let her have a foul shot. But the whole time we were talking how that girl wasn't the best foul shooter so if we needed to foul, it could be on her," Graham said.
In what seemed like a twist of karmic justice, Bowness never made another field goal. Four made freethrows from Watt and a three-pointer from Jayna Templeton were enough to give OHS the edge, allowing the Spartans to celebrate for real this time in front of a loud Frank Grisdale Hall crowd.
The Spartans finished with a 2-1 record in the tournament, which for an unranked team, was a pleasant surprise. Their single loss was only by six points and came against Wetaskiwin Composite, the No. 6-ranked school in the province. Their other win was over No. 10 Cold Lake.
"Coming into the tournament, a lot of people said we didn't really deserve to be here because we were the host team and we didn't get into this by winning zones," said Watt, who celebrated her 18th birthday that day. "But in our first game against Wetaskiwin, losing by six points proved we deserved to be here. Because that was the sixth place team and we're the 11th. It shocked everybody."
By their performance over the weekend, this Spartans squad reaches a ceiling that's somewhere between an honourable mention-quality team and No. 6 in the province. Head coach Kent Lorenz said he believed they could've beaten Wetaskiwin, had they shot better.
He has seven seniors departing and expects a rebuilding year next season around a core of Laura Klinck, Anteia Organ, Erika Olsen, Vanessa and Emily Mertens.
Making that jump from being a good team to great team will require developing girls early at the lower levels.
"You have to develop the kids at a younger age and they have to get experience," Lorenz said. "Most of these teams, the kids have played a lot more ball than they play here at Olds. That's part of it. They play all the time."
