A single, solitary point is all that stood between the Holy Cross Crusaders and their dream of playing for the B.C. senior girls class AAA basketball championship in Langley last weekend.
The second-ranked Crusaders were tripped up by a heartbreaking 67-66 loss to No. 3 Oak Bay in the semifinal round Friday night and wound up playing for bronze on Saturday afternoon.
"It was just one point that was the difference," said Holy Cross forward Michelle Bos after the Crusaders topped the W.J. Mouat Hawks 84-71 in the third-place game.
"I stayed awake late last night wondering about the what ifs. This team has been together for so long and everyone is so tight and close and that made these final two games so emotional. We were really close, but we've been on the other side of that as well. In the Fraser Valley's against Brookswood, Alli Buck hit a buzzer-beater for us to win the game. We've been on both sides of games that went right down to the final second and this time we're just unlucky to be on the losing side of it."
Holy Cross opened the tournament with a runaway win over Mount Baker and followed that up by slaying the Fleetwood Park Dragons 73-24 in quarter-final round play.
That win put the Crusaders into the semifinals against Oak Bay in a game that would take the full 40 minutes to determine a winner. Oak Bay led 20-12 after the first quarter, but the Crusaders answered back in the second frame by outscoring the Breakers 22-13 to take a 34-33 lead into the break. Holy Cross extended their advantage to 57-47 in the third quarter and maintained that 10-point edge through the early stages of the fourth quarter. Oak Bay rallied in the final five minutes of the game and finally took over the lead in the dying seconds. Holy Cross had one final shot at pulling out the win, but Bos was unable to get the shot off.
Nicole Vander Helm led the Crusaders with 23 points in the loss.
"We were up by 10 and in control in the fourth quarter, but full credit to Oak Bay, Morgan Roskelley stepped up her game and started taking the ball to the hoop," said Holy Cross coach Steve Beauchamp. "I look back on it and we just didn't make the adjustments we needed to make. We missed some chances of our own, but we had a chance to win it at the end. Oak Bay is a real class act and if we had to lose to somebody, we would prefer to lose to that team.
"We would have loved to have been in the final and play Brookswood again. Brookswood held up their end of the bargain, but we fell two points short."
Oak Bay went on to lose to top-seeded Brookswood in Saturday's championship final. Holy Cross beat Brookswood for the Fraser Valley title last month, the only time this season a Canadian team managed to beat the Bobcats.
The Crusaders closed out the tournament with a come-from-behind win over Mouat in the bronze medal game Saturday afternoon.
Thanks to a blizzard of fouls, the Hawks managed to stay close to the Crusaders for much of the contest before Holy Cross pulled away in the final frame to secure the 71-64 win.
Rachel Beauchamp led the Crusaders with 25 points.
Bos hit for 20, while Sam Beauchamp chipped in with an even dozen.
"This is definitely bittersweet," Bos said. "Even in the change room before the game we weren't happy to be there, but we all knew we had to win this game. We couldn't lose this game. We all would rather be playing in the final, but I was really proud of the girls for going out and getting the win today."
Vander Helm was named to the first allstar team, while Bos and Rachel Beauchamp were second team selections.
Rachel Beauchamp was also named a recipient of a Telus scholarship at the tournament.
mbooth@thenownewspaper.com