Down three points at the end of the third quarter, Ahousaht Mystic Sunz Kylee Sam sparked her teammates to a wild come-from-behind 51-47 win over Gingolx Storm to take the girls title at the 2012 BC Junior All Native Basketball Championship.
The Storm earned their berth in the final with a convincing win over Island Storm, then made the quick turnaround for the 1 p.m. start.
Game Photos at:
http://www.hashilthsa.com/gallery/girls-final-ahousaht-mystic-sunz-and-gingolx-storm
The game got off to a slow start as both teams tried to establish their games. Storm Micita Barton was first to score, but not until the 7:40 mark. Teammate Kali Pelletier, who would be a major force in the game, scored on the quick steal, before the Mystic Sunz offence began firing.
While Ahousaht elected to go with the fast break, the Storm offence moved a little more deliberately, with the guards pulling up and waiting for the forwards to set up under the net, but working the perimeter failed to generate many good quality shots for much of the first quarter, which ended 7-5 for Gingolx.
At the other end of the court, Sunz big girl Nicole Botting began to establish some real estate under the net and Ahousaht went into the lead briefly early in the second. With a tight Sunz defence preventing Storm from getting many quality shooting chances or rebounds, the visitors resorted to the long ball, and chipped away at any opening they were offered, gradually jumping out to an 18-11 lead.
Sunz Tracy Frank sparked her team to a bit of a late run near the end of the half, with a basket, followed by Cory Williams with a pair of clean shots at the foul line. The teams traded baskets to end the half 19-17 Gingolx.
After a brief spell on the bench in the second quarter, Botting came out quickly after the break with an early basket, followed by Tracy Frank, to tie it up 21-21. At this point, Storm coach Melvin Barton elected to make the shift to run-and-gun, and the tactic would later backfire.
Storm’s Kailen Pelletier cranked it up an extra notch, establishing her presence and contributing a pair of baskets and a free-throw to keep her team ahead 36-33 at the end of the third quarter, setting up a wild finish.
The Storm made an early run early in the fourth, which began with Kailen Pelletier’s long three-pointer, followed by Kali Pelletier with a quick steal and a basket. The Storm began to pull away and things began to look bleak for the Ahousaht girls, but sparked by anther three-pointer from Kylee Sam, the Sunz went on a 12-point run to take the lead 49-45, with just 28.5 seconds left in the game.
Storm Kali Pelletier calmly stepped up to the free-throw line and drained two in a row, to narrow the gap to 49-47, but Sunz Shanile Hayes added the insurance basket to seal the deal.
Nicole Botting led the Mystic Sunz with 22 points, followed by Kylee Sam with 11–nine of them from three-point land. Kali Pelletier led the Storm with 12, followed by Kailen Pelletier, Kayla Vickers and Kanisha Stephens, each with nine.
After the game, Sunz coach Jeremy Sam said his girls were able to dictate the pace of the game, despite falling behind through much of the first three quarters. By denying the Storm many quality shooting chances, the Sunz defence forced the visitors to change tactics. Sam pointed out that, at one point in the third quarter, the Storm continued to make the passes around the periphery until the 30-second shot clock ran out.
“That’s about when they made the change,” Sam said. “I just told our girls that defence was going to get us all the way through. We just had to play our game and stick to it, and that’s what we did. We knew our defence would keep us in the game until our girls found the range.”
