Tigers family mentality lifts girls basketball team to first OFSAA crown

By Ron Guillet

There were countless hours practicing in the gym, dedication from players and coaches alike to put the best possible tactical systems in place, an extended season in the community club ranks and experience gained from last year’s OFSAA appearance, but St. Matthew Tigers head coach Rick Despatie believes there was really just one ingredient that made the difference for his 2014 OFSAA champs: team.

“No superstars, no go-to players,” Despatie says of his group that won the first provincial high school title in program history at the Nov. 20-22 ‘AA’ championships in Kingsville. “Everyone on the team had a role and filled it quite nicely.”

The Tigers were an “unselfish” bunch that kept the team’s objectives at the forefront and bought into a defensive and offensive system in line with their relative size and skills, Despatie adds.

“We didn’t have any superstars or six-foot-three players,” concurs senior Madeline Wakefield, who led the Tigers with 14 points in the 40-35 OFSAA championship game against Lasalle. “But we had a style of basketball that surpassed all the teams who did. We strictly played together. If you looked at the scoresheet, every one of us contributed to the score. If the other team was trying to take out one of our players from scoring in the game, four other girls would rise up and take the game away.”

Along with Brianna Thompson and Elizabeth Peters, Wakefield was one of three starting seniors who’d played together since Grade 7 at St. Matt’s, while Brooklynn McAlear-Fanus joined them in Grade 9.

“Honestly, our chemistry and team bonding is the main reason we were able to do so well,” indicates Thompson, the OFSAA tournament MVP. “We all knew each other so well that we wouldn’t even have to look where we were passing as we knew where our players would be.”

The Tigers girls have been a force locally for a long time, but out of all their standout entries, this is the first one to win a provincial title (they took silver in 1999, and the boys won in 2009. However, Despatie says the formula has remained largely unchanged in his 22 years of involvement with the program.

“Defence wins championships, and I also believe in hard work,” underlines Despatie, who’s no stranger to the concept himself, putting in 20-25 hours per week coaching St. Matt’s teams as well as the Capital Xelles, the community club that operates in the high school off-season.

“This is an expectation I have in the classroom and in the gym,” adds the St. Matt’s teacher. “Good things come to those who work hard and have a goal in mind. No one owes you anything; you must go out and seek whatever you strive for.”

The sixth-seeded Tigers won five matches at OFSAA, including their final three by 5, 8 and 5 points. That completed their undefeated run, which began with a 10-0 regular season despite being the second-smallest school in the national capital league. But Wakefield believes that a smaller population actually served the squad well.

“Bonding together was like clockwork for us,” explains Wakefield, whose father, Chris, also helped coach. “When you have a team of best friends, it shows on the court. Instead of playing as individuals, we started playing for each other, and after that, we blossomed.

“We would never get mad at each other, we would always support one another, and we started playing together as a team. It was like something clicked, and after that, we knew we could go far together. Having a team of nine players made us almost like a family, and the bonding we shared was one of the main factors that helped us achieve our goal of winning OFSAA.”