One berth in provincials had already been claimed. One was still there for the taking. In a true cat fight, the College Heights Cougars ripped it away from the Columneetza Cougars.
In the junior girls basketball zone championship tournament, College Heights defeated Columneetza 30-17 Saturday afternoon at Duchess Park. In the eight-team tournament's second final, College Heights led just 14-10 at half-time but outscored a weary Columneetza crew 16-7 in the last two quarters.
Columneetza, from Williams Lake, was playing its second game of the day and fifth overall, while College Heights was rested and playing its fourth tournament game.
The other factor in favour of College Heights was improved play as the game against Columneetza progressed.
"We weren't doing a lot of things right in the first half -- a lot of mistakes," said coach Jeff Goodrich. "We made some changes to our defence [in the second half] and decided we'd come out a little more aggressively and it caused them to turn the ball over a lot."
Earlier at zones, College Heights beat the Kelly Road Roadrunners 45-18, downed the Nechako Valley Viqueens 40-33 and then, in the first final, lost 57-23 to the Duchess Park Condors.
The Condors, the zone champions, will be the top seed from this region at provincials. At zones, they also defeated the PGSS Polars 78-13 and dumped Columneetza 64-7.
On Tuesday, see The Citizen and pgcitizen.ca for more.
