By William Bailey
The home team salvaged a place on the podium Sunday at the Canadian Wheelchair Basketball League Women’s National Championship to conclude the Mar. 22-24 event at Collège La Cité.
Ottawa players Émilie Mondor, Keisha Panoff, Rebecca Knowles and Tayler O’Shaughnessy all competed for Team Ontario, which won two games and lost two en route to the bronze medal.
“It was certainly a great way to wrap up the tournament,” said Team Ontario assistant coach Sana Worley. “They fought hard the whole way and did a great job sharing the ball and creating good shots.”
It was a one-sided affair in the bronze medal match as Team Ontario doubled their opposition’s total, led by Toronto’s Danielle DuPlessis with a game-high 16 points.
Ontario didn’t allow their opponents to hit double-digits in any quarter in the contest en route to a 48-24 win over Team Mixed, made up of athletes who weren’t on Ontario, Quebec or British Columbia’s provincial teams.
“I think our biggest issue was communication,” said Anne-Marie Giguère of Team Mixed. “It can be of a challenge since we aren’t used to playing with each other, but there wasn’t a lot of talking out there [Sunday]. If there’s no communication, things usually don’t work out for your team.”
The bronze medal match was Ontario’s second victory over Mixed, having won 51-28 in the round robin stage alongside defeats to B.C. 47-32 and Quebec 72-40.
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“We had some mixed results throughout the tournament, so we definitely had our work cut out for us,” Worley indicated. “But I’m very proud of our effort these past few days and our determination to push through game after game.”
Team Quebec was the class of the four-team field. Ontario’s 72-40 defeat in round robin play was as close as any team would come to knocking off Quebec, which went on to dominate B.C. 75-38 in the gold medal game. Five-time Paralympian Cindy Ouellet scored a game-high 17 points in the final and was named tournament MVP.
Held since 1990, the CWBL Women’s National Championship weekend also featured a 3×3 recreational tournament as well as a development clinic.