The Toilers took a 36-28 lead at half, turning it into a 63-32 edge through three quarters and never looked back on their way to an 81-36 victory over Briercrest Christian Academy in front of an always-raucous crowd at Sask Polytech.
The city final win was the ninth straight for the Toilers and capped off yet another undefeated season in the local league.
“Peacock has such a great basketball program and I’m really proud to be a part of that,” said Peacock’s Megan MacDonald, one of six Grade 12s on this year’s squad. “It’s crazy how much it impacts you as a player and person, I’ve made so many memories in this sport and it’s been really nice to play here.”
MacDonald had six of her game-high 14 points in the third quarter as Peacock pulled away, a situation that became all the more necessary given how close things were in the first half – the Toilers’ eight-point lead at the break was especially dramatic seeing how the two teams went blow-for-blow in an 18-18 second quarter.
“It was good to keep it interesting in the first half, it kept us on our toes, but it was cool to pull away and win it that way,” McDonald said. “We’ve had slow starts all season but it’s good to come back in them, it makes the end more rewarding when you start slow and come back and win.”
Senior guard Piper Ingalls pointed to their defence and quick transition game as a heavy key to their second-half success, something on display as the Toilers held BCA to only four points in each of the final two quarters.
“We played a lot harder on defence and we started scoring more, getting it to our posts, and we started shooting way better,” Ingalls said. “It was a little scary (early), but I think we just pulled it together and were able to hold them off.”
It certainly didn’t hurt that with their veteran core the Toilers knew just what they had to do to get the job done.
“Any time we had all the Grade 12s on we knew we had a lot of experience out there and that helped us out.” Ingalls said.
Ingalls finished the game with 13 points, while Caitlyn Johnson, Emily MacKenzie and Caitlin Miller all had 11 points each.
The Cougars were led by Lilly Matthies with 12 points.
