The tournament may not have gone the way they wanted it to, but in the end the Sacred Heart Lady Saints still managed to end the Raider Invitational Tournament on a positive note, dropping the Balgonie Greenall Griffins 46-30 in their final contest of the competition to finish in seventh place overall.
Grade 12 senior Justine Zarowny led the Lady Saints offensively in the win.
The speedy guard tallied 15 points against the Griffins while grade 10 backup Janeen Pellatt also had a strong game scoring six points from the bench in a win that first year Sacred Heart head coach Haylea Herbert said was more important than just getting a 鈥榃鈥�. 鈥淏eating Balgonie was big for us because they鈥檙e a team that we鈥檒l see at Regionals in a couple of weeks,鈥� said Herbert, adding that a win over the Griffins not only makes a difference in terms of seeding, but also proves to her girls that they can compete with fellow 4A teams. 鈥淔or them to know that they have the potential to beat these teams going into Regionals is good, because although we didn鈥檛 do so well in the tournament, winning against Balgonie is good for their confidence heading into Regionals.鈥�
The win was very much needed for the Saints to finish the weekend strongly, as Sacred Heart ran into some stiff competition in their first two games, losing 64-50 to their Gladstone Avenue rivals the YRHS Lady Raiders to open the tournament before dropping 63-55 decision to the Swan Valley Tigers in their second game.
While the loss to the Raiders was not completely unexpected, the game against Swan Valley was one that coach Herbert felt got away from them. 鈥淲e played really well in the first half and the game was practically tied going into halftime, but in the third quarter is where we lost it,鈥� said Herbert, mentioning that the Tigers scored 27 points in the third quarter compared to just eight for the Saints. 鈥淲e pulled it together in the fourth quarter and played well but couldn鈥檛 come back.
鈥淚 think that game probably should have been ours but it was just that one bad quarter that came back and bit us in the butt.鈥�
Kendra Varjassy scored a team high 17 points in the loss to Swan Valley with Zarowny scoring 10. In the loss to the Regional it was Zarowny that led the way with 16 points while fellow senior Varjassy also hit double digits scoring 11.
The Lady Saints will now play the Melville Cobras in an exhibition game sometime in the near future in order to better prepare themselves for the 2016 SHSAA 4A Regional competition at an as of yet unknown location.
