The Cedars Christian Eagles will get another shot at the Houston Christian Wildcats in the B.C. final.
The Eagles advanced to the gold-medal game of the senior girls basketball single-A provincial championship tournament when they beat the Southridge Storm 73-61 Friday night at the Northern Sport Centre.
Earlier Friday, the Wildcats topped the Princeton Rebels 76-50 in their semifinal. The results set up a rematch of last year's final, a contest in which the top-seeded Wildcats defeated the second-ranked Eagles 75-48.
"We're very pleased to be back in the final," said Cedars coach Al MacDonald. "Our girls worked hard on it all year, and Prince George basketball and northern basketball are going to be well-represented [tonight]."
The game will start at 6:30 at the NSC. Again, the Wildcats are the top seed and the Eagles are No. 2.
A key for the Eagles will be trying to limit the damage done by Ruth Hamblin, a Grade 12 post player who stands an intimidating six-foot-six.
"Pressure basketball is part of our game plan," MacDonald said.
"That's what we're going to be doing and we'll see if Houston can match up with our tempo and then we have to solve some of their height advantages.
"Ruth, she's going to be a contributor on their team. There's not much you can do about her height, except our post players played well [Friday] night so we want a good, solid game from them. And then we have a few problems that they have to solve as well so it's going to be a bit of a chess match."
In their Friday semifinal, the Eagles trailed 36-33 after the first half but came out in the third quarter and dominated.
Their up-tempo defence resulted in a lot of missed shots and turnovers by the Storm, and the Eagles capitalized. In the quarter, Cedars outscored its opponent 22-8.
"We just got a lot of passes and good, smart plays and everyone stepped up on defence," said Grade 10 Cedars guard Hannah Pudlas, who led her team with 27 points.
The Eagles also made an adjustment at half-time to make sure they had a couple players back defensively whenever the Storm gained possession of the ball.
In the first half, the Storm had great success with the long-bomb pass but that play was almost non-existent in the second.
Grade 11 forward Kayla Gordon added 18 points for the Eagles and Kayla Eby, another Grade 11 forward, chipped in with 12.
Forward Ashley Andreou, with 37 points, was by far the most dangerous member of the Storm. Andreou is in her Grade 11 year.
Today's bronze-medal game, between the sixth-seeded Storm and fourth-ranked Princeton, is scheduled for 4:30 p.m.
