HAMILTON-WENTWORTH CATHOLIC DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD
Cathedral Gaels capture provincial championship

By Larry Moko

The Cathedral Gaels capped their senior girls' high school basketball season with a 20-0 record Friday and brought home gold medals from the OFSAA championship tournament in St. Catharines.

Dominant is the best word to describe the Gaels this season. Overall, they averaged 78.2 points for, while yielding only 36.1 against.

In the final of the eight-team Ontario AAA showcase event, the second-seeded Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic league representatives breezed to an 80-23 victory over Brantford's CI Mustangs.

It was the first provincial medal ever won by a Cathedral girls' senior basketball team in the school's history.

Mustangs coach Pat Woodburn was impressed with Cathedral, which also defeated his squad 87-42 on opening day.

"They are fantastic," Woodburn said. "It's one of the very best teams I've seen in the last 30 years."

The Gaels advanced with a 76-41 semifinal win over the host Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs, while Brantford CI defeated the top-seeded St. Francis Xavier Tigers, 34-28, in their semifinal.

"They were so much better than everyone else at this tournament," Woodburn said. "They do everything right. They're well coached, they share the basketball and they know how to play the game.

"They enjoy each other, too. You can see it on the court."

The Mustangs coach, who has guided numerous teams that have competed at OFSAA, said the Gaels shooters are deadly.

"They're great shooters," he said. "In high school ball you don't often have seven or eight girls like they do that can hit the 3. It's impressive. We played really well against other teams here but these guys are 40 or 50 points better than anyone else in this tournament."

Cathedral's full-court press defence forced opponents into numerous turnovers throughout the two days of competition. In the gold-medal match, for example, the Gaels went on a 29-0 run to end the opening quarter. At the half, it was 50-6.

Nicole Daly and her twin sister Keira - both on in Grade 10 -- led the Cathedral attack with 17 and 15 points respectively. Every player in the lineup, in fact, figured in the scoring. The rest of the Cathedral roster is comprised of Amy Varrasso, Rachel Daly, Kaylor Rosos, Elena Hilson, Kylie Rosos, Maya Flynn, Atteyla Barichello, Kaileez Joseph, Nubeah Clarke and Elizabeth Spanic.

"It's really exciting," Keira Daly said. "I'm glad I got to play on this team. I had so much fun doing it."

The head coach of the Gaels is Keira and Nicole's father, Kevin Daly.

"It was a great season," coach Daly said. "The girls' hard work came to fruition today. I'm proud of their accomplishment."

In addition to going undefeated all year, Cathedral earlier this month captured the league title for the first time in 41 years.

Handing out the medals to the Gaels during post-game ceremonies was Kevin Daly's brother, Mark. He's the Cathedral principal and former Gaels star who went on to play professional basketball.

On the bench assisting, as he has been all season, sat Kevin and Mark's father, Jim Daly. Jim also won a city championship as a player for the Gaels boys' team before becoming principal at Cathedral and serving as an assistant coach with an OFSAA title winner in 1998. Jim is the grandfather of Nicole, Keira and Rachel.

"People know I love Cathedral and the kids at Cathedral," Jim Daly said. "To win the all-Ontario is a crowning achievement for the school. I'm very happy for the girls program. They won it for the first time and it was done so decisively. We're one of the most dominant teams I've ever seen. We never went into the second half where the game wasn't over."

All three of Daly's sons - Brian, Mark and Kevin - are Cathedral graduates who have coached Gaels basketball at various times over the years.

According to Jim, it has been the fulfillment of a dream to be sitting alongside three of his grandchildren (Rachel, Nicole and Keira) on the bench.

"We knew that the three granddaughters were very good ever since they were in Grade 4," Jim said.

Said Keira: "I'm glad my grandpa got to sit on the bench with us during all of this. I know he's proud of us."

Nicole had a game-high 22 points in the semifinal decision over the hosts from Sir Winston Churchill.