Saints win 4th straight "Chow" tourney

The Churchville-Chili Saints defeated Spencerport 48-45 in the first round and Brockport 64-47 in the finals to win the 12th annual "Coach Chow" Classic girl’s basketball tournament held at Roberts Wesleyan College just after Christmas. It is the fourth consecutive year the Saints have won the tournament and their sixth championship overall.

In the first round, the Saints trailed at halftime, but an offensive put back by Sara Begley and a pull-up jumper by Katie Sullivan to start the second half gave them a 28-26 lead. Spencerport retook a four point lead late in the third quarter before the Saints got late baskets from Colleen Montgomery and Katie Voorheis to tie the game for the seventh time 36-36 at the end of three.

The fourth quarter was all Saints who took a six-point lead with 44 seconds left on a pair of free throws by Montgomery. The Rangers Carrie Kazmierski knocked down a three-pointer with 24 seconds left to close the gap to three. The Saints failed on two occasions to put the game away at the line before Spencerport missed a three-point attempt to tie at the buzzer.

Voorheis led the Saints with 16 points, 15 rebounds and 7 steals in the game. Sullivan scored 13 points and Montgomery chipped in 10 points with her 10 rebounds.

The Rangers Kazmierski led all scorers with 17 points and Lisa Eberhart added 12.

Montgomery scored 16 points in the finals against Brockport and was named the tourney MVP. Sullivan was also named to the All-Tourney team.

"This was our first victory since Joanna Patalano went down with her knee injury," said Saints head coach Ryan Raftery. "It seems every year at this tournament we have close games like this. Montgomery was struggling from the line earlier so those late free throws were big. We’ve been in most of the games since the injury so hopefully this will get us over the hump."