The buzzer sounded Sunday May 4th, in Welland Ontario and they could finally celebrate. It was the perfect cap to an incredible season for the Goulbourn Hornets Major Midget Girls. They had just won the Division 3 gold at the Ontario Cup, Ontario Basketball’s end of season provincial competition being held in the Niagara region this year. The Hornets arrived there on a high of sweeping to Division 2 gold at the prestigious Blessed Sacrament tournament in Hamilton, and a silver medal from an oh so hard-fought overtime loss at the Eastern Ontario Basketball finals earlier in April. Now they were here to show the rest of the province what they were capable of.

This provincial tournament had started Friday night, May 2nd, with the Hornets taking on the Woodstock Chill, a team they’d faced twice earlier in the season. Both those games had been close affairs, with the Hornets prevailing each time. This time however, the Hornets came out firing and ran to a 21-7 lead after the first quarter, and cruised from there to a 64 - 39 victory over the Chill. Their coaches didn’t know it at that point, but the girls had just sent a message that they were playing their best basketball of the season.

However, from now on, they would have to be perfect, as a single loss would eliminate them from a chance to play for gold at the provincial level. Their first test Saturday morning would be a quarter-final matchup with the Sultan Prospects from Brampton. Again the Hornets started strong, opening a 9 point lead at the end of the first quarter. But the Prospects were ready to respond, and fought back, cutting the lead to just 1 by half time. The Hornets re-grouped over halftime and came out determined, slowly building their lead on their way to a 61 – 51 final score.

Next came a semi-final match-up against the Brampton Warriors, a very athletic team that was also coming into the game after two impressive wins of their own. What the Warriors weren’t prepared for however, was a Hornets team that could shoot at a 50% pace from three point land, while also playing a solid system of team defense that denied them interior penetration. Without an outside shooting answer of their own, Brampton stood no chance, and the Hornets ran away to a 58 – 35 victory, and a berth in the gold medal final.

The Hornets would play the final on Sunday afternoon against the Toronto Triple Threat who promised a tough challenge. As in each game in the tournament, the Hornets would again face an opponent that was had quite a size advantage, but this one also had some skilled guard play to complement their size. Could the Hornets’ team system prevail? Before the game their head coach challenged the Hornets to finish the season strongly with one final win. But the start of the game saw both teams feeling the nerves of the moment, with neither able to score for the first few minutes. Gold medal jitters no doubt were evident for both sides. The tentative play continued for most of the first half which ended with the Hornets ahead just 18 – 14. One last time the Hornets collected themselves over halftime, and focused on their goal. They started the second half buzzing on defence, stealing the ball repeatedly, and outscoring the Triple Threat 21 – 8 in the third quarter alone. From there, they relied on their team defense to deny Toronto any chance of mounting a comeback, as they closed out the game with a final score of 55 – 42, and claimed their gold medals.

With this finish, the team had won a medal in every competition they entered during the season. Over the 6 tournaments they played, they earned 3 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze. The division 3 championship at the Ontario Cup earned the girls a final ranking of 17 out of 70 ranked teams in the province. A truly remarkable season Hornets!