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Sports Oakville Beaver OUT OF INK? REFILL AND SAVE UP TO 60% Upper Oakville Shopping Centre (Upper Middle & 8th Line) 905-842-5600 SPORTS EDITOR: JON KUIPERIJ Phone 905-845-3824 (ext. 432) Fax 905-337-5571 email sports@oakvillebeaver.com · THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2009 25 Group hug Titans outlast Irish in clash of girls' basketball powers By Herb Garbutt OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF NIKKI WESLEY / OAKVILLE BEAVER TOUGH SLEDDING: Oakville Crusaders players Jeff Feeney (left) and Stuart Riley double-team an Irish Canadians opponent during Saturday's Marshall Premiership League rugby first-round playoff game at Crusader Park. Oakville defeated the Irish 11-8 and will host the Peterborough Pagans Oct. 24 in the second round. Blades' athletic therapist passes away The Oakville Blades lost a big part of their hockey family this week. Bob (Bongo) Baird, the junior A team's head athletic therapist for the past five years, lost his battle with kidney cancer Tuesday morning at Burlington's Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital. Baird was 60 years old. Though Baird's title was athletic therapist, he did a lot of other work behind the scenes to keep the team running smoothly the past several seasons. "He ran the dressing room, the equipment, he was the guy who kept me able to just worry about coaching," said Blades general manager Carlo Coccimiglio, who coached Bob Baird (left) is pictured with former Blades defenceman the team the past couple seasons. Chris Haltigin and the Stanley Cup at the 2007 World Junior A "He was full of life... and everything he did was always Challenge. very professional." Viewings will be held today (Thursday) from 2-4 p.m. The Blades will wear black armbands during their and 7-9 p.m. at Donald Brown Funeral Home, 36 Lake home game tomorrow against the Couchiching Terriers, a Avenue Drive in Stoney Creek. 7:30 p.m. start at Joshua's Creek Arenas. The funeral will take place tomorrow (Friday) at 11 A memorial game is also being planned for this season, a.m., also at Donald Brown Funeral Home. Coccimiglio said. If overcoming adversity is the true mark of a champion, the Holy Trinity Titans may be ready for a run at the Halton senior girls' basketball title. Vic Juzenas is quick to point out the Notre Dame Fighting Irish was not at full strength Tuesday in Trinity's 63-59 home victory over the defending champs, who were missing Jamie Ruttle. And he expects to see a different team come playoff time. What the Titans coach doesn't focus on is that for much of the second half, his team was also shorthanded. With Trinity clinging to a two-point lead three minutes into the second half, the Titans' Amanda Perrotta and Cydoney Curran collided as they raced back to play defence. Both hit the floor hard and the game was delayed more than 15 minutes while they were treated. When the game resumed, the Titans had every reason to be rattled with two of their Grade 12 starters on their way to the hospital. The Irish was in the midst of a 13-4 run at the time of the injury and had all the momentum going its way. However, the three-point shooting of Laura Mooney and Samantha Ernest, as well as a key contribution off the bench by Selina Singh, helped the Titans hold off the Irish. Holy Trinity will need contributions from throughout the lineup in the coming weeks. Perotta suffered a bruised thigh and a concussion and is expected to miss a couple of weeks. Curran has either a strained or partially torn ACL. Her status for the remainder of the season is unknown. So the Irish may not be the only team looking different when the playoffs roll around. "We've got a lot of depth," Juzenas said. "We had two girls go down and we didn't fold." Still up by one with a couple of minutes to go, the Titans lost yet another starter when Doreen Bonsu fouled out. But Trinity came through with clutch freethrow shooting, going 6-for-6 in the final 94 seconds. Amanda Swinhoe hit two to extend the lead to three and then, after Notre Dame's Melissa Mullins tied the game with a threepointer, second-half subs Kristin Sprukulis and Singh put the game away in the final minute by hitting both of their shots from the line. Bench is key Juzenas said the Trinity bench saw plenty of time during the St. Mary's tournament on the weekend. And although the Titans lost all three of their games, the experience was valuable. Not only did it give everyone floor time, but it helped in dealing with Notre Dame's pressure defence. "A lot of teams play that kind of defence and you have to learn to play at a fast pace when teams do that," Juzenas said. Notre Dame used that pressure to fight back from the 17-6 advantage Trinity built in the first quarter. That lead had shrunk to six by the half and Notre Dame tied the game by forcing turnovers early in the third quarter. But Trinity refused to surrender the lead. Mooney and Ernest each hit from beyond the arc late in the third and again early in the fourth to rebuild a five-point edge. When the Irish erased that, a pair of baskets by Singh and a threepoint play by Ernest put Trinity up 57-52 with less than three minutes to play. In the end, Trinity's ability to capitalize on free throws carried the Titans to victory. They finished the game 17-for-23 (74 per cent) while Notre Dame was just 11-for21 (52 per cent).