Joey Payeur
The duo sat together in anguished disbelief on the end line—soon to be joined by their equally tearful fellow senior starters.
For Ashley Croswell, Claire Hyatt, and the rest of the Muskie senior girls’ basketball team, their world hadn’t ended—it just felt like it.
The Grade 12 members of the Muskies saw their high school hoops careers come to a painful end with a 28-23 loss to the Dryden Eagles in the NorWOSSA final Friday at Fort High.
“I’m never going to play on this court again,” wept Croswell, who literally was doubled over in grief.
“That’s what hurts the most.
“It felt like half the team was sleeping out there,” she noted.
The other three Muskie teams all captured gold in what appeared to be an unstoppable march to history—no one school had never won four NorWOSSA titles in the same season with all four squads having gone undefeated during the regular season.
Instead, the senior hoopsters will have to take solace in the notion that an 8-0 regular season, along with a 28-game NorWOSSA winning streak for the former two-time defending champs, are accomplishments that won’t soon be forgotten.
“We may have choked a little and came in too confident,” chimed in a similarly red-eyed Hyatt.
“The shots just weren’t there,” she noted.
“Dryden’s offence was faster today and they were quicker on their feet.”
The Muskies had beaten Dryden handily all four times they met during the regular season and seemed destined to pull off a NorWOSSA “three-peat.”
But from the outset, the black-and-gold were hassled into one missed shot after another near the basket, which has been their bread and butter all season thanks to the height of the likes of Amber Williams, Sarah Vandermeer, and Sydney Cowley-White.
The vaunted trio was shackled by the Eagles, with Williams only getting three points while Cowley-White had two.
Vandermeer was blanked.
With not too much greater luck coming in its outside shooting game, Fort High still led 7-6 after the first quarter and were tied 12-12 at halftime.
In the third, the Muskies went up by three. Then after Croswell’s putback to start the fourth, they looked to be on their way leading 21-16 in a game where baskets were at a premium.
But the Eagles refused to die—going on a 7-0 run capped by a 10-foot jumper from Sydney Allen.
Cowley-White’s two-footer tied the game with four minutes left but that would be the last point Fort High would net.
Monica Tourond hit a clutch 12-footer with 1:15 left to put Dryden back in front, then a flurry of Muskie turnovers and unsuccessful shots made that lead stand up.
The Eagles clinched it by making three foul shots in the final minute, with Sarah Benson draining the last two with 10 seconds left to put the game out of reach.
“Today we shot ourselves in the foot,” said Muskie co-coach Dan Bird.
“Our passing was nowhere what it had to be and you can’t have that against a team like Dryden,” he stressed.
“We hung in there but we missed our opportunities≤” Bird added.
“It happens, but it’s unfortunate it had to happen in this game.”
Bird lauded Croswell, Hyatt, Williams, and senior starting guard Maggie Jean, who all have reached the end of the line with the team.
“All our seniors, other than Amy Caul who joined us this season, have been dedicated to the program for over four years,” he noted.
“I’ve been working with them as far back as even Grades 7 and 8, and it’s their commitment and effort that’s been at the heart of the success of this program.”
Hyatt tried to find some good in all the bad feelings she was experiencing.
“There’s been a lot of positives with being on this team,” she remarked.
“We have to remember how many in a row we won,” she added.
“I’m just really sad it’s over.”
The Eagles now will host the Hammarskjold Vikings (Thunder Bay) in the best-of-three NWOSSSAA final this Friday and Saturday.
The winner advanced to the OFSAA ‘AA’ championships Nov. 26-28 in Kingsville.
