St. Mary’s defends against Megan Getz of the Rattlers.
The Lightning struck but to no avail, taking home a silver medal. The Saint Mary’s Lightning went into the weekend as a second ranked south division seed.
The Lightning left with heavy necks, as they claimed second place overall, and took home the silver medals for the women’s basketball conference.
Sparks came from the Lightning the first day, as they easily defeated the Keyano Huskies. The second game for the Lightning saw a tough match up against the Medicine Hat Rattlers.
They were able to take the win subduing the Rattlers by 12.
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Heidi Strom, a former player for the Lightning, watched from the stands, hoping for the win for her former team. “What made them get into the finals was really the intensity they came out within the start of the fourth quarter to close that gap quickly and eventually get ahead and win the semi-finals,” said Strom.
The Lightning were able to more than quadruple points made by the Rattlers in the fourth, outscoring them 29 – 6 and producing the win.
Steve Shoults the head coach for St. Mary’s, was ecstatic by the results of the semi-final game, which catapulted the Lightning into the gold medal game.
“We knew it’d be a battle we were down by 11 going into the fourth quarter and we outscored them… we’d been talking all year about how defense was going to win a game and it did tonight,” said Shoults.
Laura Belisle is a third year with the Lightning, who believes that having a little bit of a tough start to the season this year is what helped them stay grounded through the game.
“Since then we’ve picked up the pace and we’ve played it really well the past couple of weeks… I think going through the tough first semester gave us a bit of a learning curve” said Belisle.
The Lightning faced the Lethbridge Kodiaks, on Saturday night.
Coming out strong, the Lightning took the lead for the first minute of the game, but fell behind after the first quarter.
The Kodiaks were able to take the lead and keep it, winning the game 85 – 54 as the final score and presenting the Lightning silver medals.
The Lightning finished off their season with a 16 – 5 season, and a 2 – 1 conference championship.
