A week of ROPSSAA news

FOOTBALL
Congrats to Lorne Park and Notre Dame, winners of the ROPSSAA junior and senior football titles, respectively. In the Junior final, Lorne Park outlasted a tough St. Roch squad 13-10 in a close game. The next day, it was Notre Dame's turn to shine, with a thrilling 28-21 victory over Mount Carmel. The boards were buzzing of rumours about injuries to top players on both teams but they proved to either be false or exaggerated as both teams were at close to full strength. Fortunately for ROPSSAA, this year is their turn to send two teams to the Golden Horseshoe semi-finals. Notre Dame will play SOSSAA winner St. Paul from Niagara Falls, the first time in ages the region isn't represented by Lakeshore Catholic. Meanwhile, Mount Carmel will have its work cut out for them, playing a Burlington Nelson team that many think is the best high school team in Canada. In Tier 2, it was Mayfield winning easily over Clarkson.

BASKETBALL
For the second year in a row, Campion are the champions of ROPSSAA girls basketball, once again defeating Notre Dame in the final. This year, the final wasn't even close, with Campion winning by a decisive 49-23 margin. Both teams advance to OFSAA outside of Windsor, where Campion is seeded a surprisingly low 9 and Notre Dame is only one spot behind. This strikes me as a bit strange. Meanwhile, ROPSSAA's other three qualifiers all failed to get by their GHAC opponents and finish one game short of qualifying to OFSAA. Loyola lost to perennial powerhouse Hamilton St. Mary's (though they did win the tier 2 title over Pocock); Ascension lost by a surprisingly large margin to Oakville's Aquinas and Brampton Christian lost to King's Christian from Burlington.

Speaking of OFSAA, congratulations to the Rimrocker organizers who have apparently been awarded the 2014 OFSAA AAAA boys basketball championship in 2014. This will be the first time the championship has ever been hosted in Mississauga.

VOLLEYBALL
Rick Hansen was given a gift when their bitter rivals from Mississauga withdrew from the playoffs but they couldn't capitalize, losing in the semi-finals to eventual champions Brampton Centennial. BCSS will be joined at AAAA OFSAA by Robert F. Hall which also advanced to the league final. Our reps at the smaller levels are Applewood (AAA), St. Paul (AA), and Brampton Christian (A). Rick Hansen did have more success at the junior level, defeating Mayfield. Their Bantam team was not as lucky, losing to the only Mississauga squad that was allowed to remain in the playoffs.

THE CUTS CONTINUE
Complaints are being voiced by the boys basketball coaches over the number of teams in the playoffs. As predicted in an earlier post about ROPSSAA budget cuts, the playoffs are down to 8 from 16 (senior) and 12 (junior last year). There is also some dissatisfaction over the division set up, both in terms of number of games and the unwieldy three-division set up that leaves too much up to tie-breakers between teams that don't play common opponents. Surely ROPSSAA can set up even numbers of divisions to make it simpler and more fair?