Defence wins championships.
That was the case for the host Oilfields Drillers senior girls basketball team over the weekend as they locked it down to claim the 2A South Central zone title too vault into the ASAA Provincial Championships later this week as the fifth seed.
"We have been preaching defence all season,” said Drillers head coach James Holladay. “You can't win at the highest level without lockdown defence and our girls have worked hard at it and it is shining through at the right time of the year."
In a battle of top 10 ranked teams in the province, the Drillers overpowered Trochu by a 62-26 score in the zone final on March 15 in Diamond Valley.
A balanced attack saw senior forward Anya Pain lead the offence with 11 points, Sarah Sillito added 10 points and four steals, Brooklyn Holladay posted a double with 10 points and 10 rebounds and Mackenzie Wionzek scored eight.
As the top seed in the eight-team competition, the Drillers had a bye through the first round before beating Strathmore’s Holy Cross Collegiate Hawks 72-35 in the semifinal.
Cassie Crane dominated on the glass with 12 rebounds along with six assists, guard Josie Raugust had six steals with Sillito and Holladay pacing the attack with 13 and 11 points, respectively.
At the other end of the floor, Allison Biggs played shutdown defence on the top players from Holy Cross and Trochu.
“She was tasked with shutting down the star player on the other team in both games, and it made all the difference,” the coach added.
Oilfields goes into the 2A provincials, held March 20-22 at Rundle College in Calgary, as the fifth seed. They’ll open the competition against No. 12 ranked Onoway.
The Drillers will enter the competition with a plethora of tournament success and experience, much of which was against 3A and 4A schools, with five medals won.
“You have to play the best to become the best, even if you have to take a few beatings in the process," coach Holladay added. “When little old Oilfields is the only 2A school in a big 3A/4A tournament we usually become the sacrificial lamb and have the best team in the tournament first, we played the ranked number one 3A team in the province first at one tourney and the ranked number 2 3A team first at the other.
“We love this as our girls get better, even with a loss."
In league play, the Drillers repeated as Foothills Athletic Council champions, going undefeated en route to the championship. Oilfields won the title by a 62-50 squad over the Highwood Mustangs.
"Highwood is always a class act, the girls play hard till the whistle then they chat it up with our team and are so positive," Holladay said. "The sportsmanship between our two teams is the way sports should be, medals or no medals, the girls hung around together after the game then a two-team picture ensued.”
Oilfields, which features five seniors in Raugust, Biggs Pain, Reagan Crowe and Sarah Harris, finished the season with 26 wins.
For more information on the 2A provincials, go to asaa.ca/championships.
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