Crocus wins tourney with buzzer beater

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This article was published 08/12/2019 (2343 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Local sports fans can only hope the final of Saturday’s Crocus Plains early bird tournament provides a taste of what lies ahead in the varsity girls division of the Brandon High School Basketball League this season.

Jasmine Horwood’s buzzer-beating bucket gave her Crocus Plainsmen a dramatic 63-62 victory over the Vincent Massey Vikings in a game that equally showed a pair of teams searching for their early season form and displaying terrific potential.

“Coach (Adam Hartman) called a timeout and told us to execute a play,” Horwood said. “I just crashed the boards and got the ball up.”

Tournament MVP Rachael Donald poured in 15 points for Crocus and Natalie Shakotko added 10. Laura Simonson led Massey with 12 points, with Sara Synk adding 10. Both were tournament all-stars.

“There were definitely times that we weren’t in the game, which was a little frustrating for everybody, myself included,” Donald said. “It was almost a back and forth of ‘We’re in it and we’re doing really well’ and then ‘Oh, oh, where are our heads? We’re not there.’”

The guests led 19-17 after the first quarter, and outscored Crocus 14-7 in the second quarter to take a 33-24 lead into a half that was punctuated with plenty of whistles on fouls and a variety of other violations.

“We were converting on turnovers,” Massey coach Kevin Doerksen said of his team’s success in the second quarter. “We were hitting our shots, we were hitting our turnovers and probably hitting some more foul shots than we did later in the game. Defensively we were really tight. They didn’t get any easy buckets on us. In fact we caused them to turn it over a lot in that quarter.”

Donald and Shakotko took over in the third quarter, pouring in 18 points of the Plainsmen’s 24 points as Crocus took its first lead with 14 minutes 46 seconds remaining in the 40-minute game.

Crocus was up 48-45 after the third quarter, setting up a wild final 10 minutes.

The Plainsmen widened the lead to five points with five minutes left, but were actually trailing in the last 90 seconds when Massey’s shots began to fall again.

The Vikings led 62-58 with 22 seconds remaining when Cassidy McDonald of the Plainsmen drained a three to make it a one-point game.

Massey failed to score on its final possession and after a Crocus timeout, Horwood converted from five feet on a missed shot just prior to the final buzzer sounding.

“It was an amazing feeling,” Horwood said. “It’s not a lot of times you get the opportunity to make the winning play.”

Donald wasn’t surprised by the Grade 10 student’s heroics.

“She’s an amazing player,” Donald said. “She’s a very useful asset to our team. She’s a crazy good ball handler and she can hit shots. Her energy is just always so high.”

Hartman said it was an unlikely end to a game that lacked much flow in the early going.

“For a game that started off so slow in the first quarter with eight million fouls that happened on both sides, it was very entertaining for the fans for the final two quarters,” Hartman said. “It was back and forth and both teams had their mini runs. Props to our girls, who were able to execute out of a timeout and listened to two or three different scenarios and were able to apply it and get that offensive rebound and put it back in at the end of the game.”

Doerksen was also pleased with what he saw from his Vikings. His final roster wasn’t decided until earlier this week.

“I’m just so impressed with all of our kids, really,” Doerksen said. “Our young kids, Grade 10s, when the intensity reached its maximum point, they were overwhelmed with what was going on and made a few mistakes but I’ll you what, they grew and got so much better. The future of varsity girls basketball at Vincent Massey is very bright.”

He noted that Mackenzie Cords was especially strong on defence, although he added the team has to do a better job of picking up its assignments, and of hitting free throws.

Synk, a Grade 10 student at Massey participating in her first weekend of varsity basketball action, liked how her team fought to the end in a game with its fair share of ups and downs.

“It was a good game,” Synk said. “We just had to fight a little harder and make more of our free throws.”

The high school season kicks off on Dec. 17, with the playoffs in mid-February and provincials in March.

In the third-place game on Saturday, tournament all-star Faith Billaney led the Boissevain Broncos with 15 points as they beat the Neelin Spartans 4134.

Milaina Nachtigal had 10 points for Neelin.

In the fifth-place game, Mackenzie Garand poured in 24 points as the Teulon Saints beat the Portage Saints 5023. Noah Ross led PCI with four points.

In the seventh-place game, Adria Bateman scored 24 points as the Swan Valley Tigers beat the Crocus Plains junior varsity squad 9024. Brooklyn Speight led Crocus with eight points.

Piper Robinson of Neelin and Jessica Brown of Crocus were the other two tournament all-stars.

Hartman noted this could just be the start of quite a year.

“If this is any indication, this city is going to be a lot of fun to watch for the entire season,” Hartman said.

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @PerryBergson