No. 1 MULGRAVE 70 No. 5 ST. THOMAS MORE 44
LANGLEY — You could scan the rosters of every senior girls basketball team in the province, and you might not be able to find two sides who contrasted each other more in overall size than the two who met Friday afternoon in the B.C. senior girls AA semifinals.
No. 1-seeded, defending B.C. champion Mulgrave of West Vancouver with its trio of six-foot-plus starters in Eva Ruse, Lucy Xu and Jenna Talib vs. St. Thomas More of Burnaby and it’s main rotation of players averaging a shade under 5-foot-4.
OK, Talib is actually listed at 5-foot-11, but the point is still valid, and in the end, the Titans, behind a dominant performance from Ruse, wore down the Knights en route to a 70-44 victory.
The win sends Mulgrave into Saturday’s 4 p.m. championship final against the winner of Friday’s second semfinal between No. 3 Langley Christian and No. 2 Holy Cross.
“Great-coached team with a great work ethic,” said Titans’ head coach Claude Leduc of STM. “I was worried about it coming in because I know they can really get you out of your game, speed you up and make play not the way you want to play. They did that for parts to us today. And they can shoot it, and when they get hot that just fuels their tenacity.”
Fortunately for Mulgrave, they have a certain superstar in the 6-foot-2 senior Ruse.
At times being defended by STM players a full foot shorter than she, Ruse did what she was supposed to, going 15-of-23 from the floor and finishing with 36 points and 20 rebounds.
“She is a beast and she dominates even when she is playing girls her own height,” said Leduc. “But they were all over her today. They didn’t make anything easy for her, and at one point I looked and Eva’s headband was pulled halfway across her face.”
Jenna Talib, who made the move to point guard following a knee injury which has kept 6-foot guard Ava Wilson out the entire season, scored 19 points.
Compact guards Demicah Arnaldo (14 points) and Mia Beliveau (eight points) led the Knights’ backcourt group while forward Grace Haffner came off the bench and added eight points. Meara McCormick of the Knights played excellent inside defence despite being outsized at every turn.
Leduc said the team is playing for their injured teammate Wilson here at provincials.
“Absolutely they are playing for her,” he said. “These girls have been together since Grade 7 and this provincials is a celebration of six years of sisterhood for them.”
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