On Friday, February 28th The Goulbourn Hornets Major Midget Girls team headed west along Hwy 401 to take part in the London CYO Basketball tournament.  This would be a chance for the girls to test themselves against competition outside of the Eastern Ontario region in which they play.

In their first game on Friday night, the Hornets would face the Blessed Sacrament Yellow Jackets from Hamilton. The Hornets wanted to set the tone for the weekend and using an aggressive swarming man-to-man full court defense, they overwhelmed the Yellow Jackets right from the opening tip-off, coasting to a 59-23 win. Their next game, Saturday morning against the Woodstock Chill, promised to be a much tougher test. The game lived up to this and was close from start to finish, with the Hornets bearing down in the final minutes to earn a hard-fought 54-50 win. The Hornets rode this momentum to an easy 75-15 win over their final round-robin opponent, the London 86’ers.  This ensured the Hornets would finish first in their pool heading into the playoffs on Sunday.

In their semi-final game Sunday morning Goulbourn would play the Kitchener-Waterloo Lightning who had placed 2nd in the other pool. Unfortunately, the Hornets came out a little flat and fell behind. Struggling with their shooting accuracy throughout the game, the Hornets relied instead on hustle and defense to keep the game close, until the final minute when they were able to pull away thanks to clutch foul shooting. A 54-47 victory earned them a place in the gold medal game.

In the tournament final, the Hornets would again face the Woodstock Chill who had upset the winner of the other pool in their semi-final earlier in the day. Once again the game between the Hornets and the Chill was a tight affair with the lead changing a few times. But the Hornets came back determined after the half time break, and clamped down on their perimeter defense. This let them build a double digit lead by the end of the third quarter which they would never relinquish, eventually winning the gold medal with a final score of 68-59.

This gold was the third consecutive medal for the Goulbourn Major Midget Girls in as many outings this season, adding to the silver they won at the Kanata Chris Paulin tournament in December and the bronze in the Gloucester Mike O’Connor tournament in February.