text: Surging Flames ground Eagles | London Free Press
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  Surging Flames ground Eagles
  November 16, 2012 • 2 minute read
  Picking up where they left off two days earlier, the Aquinas Flames rolled into the second OFSAA girls' basketball tournament appearance in the school's history and first since 2007, beating the East Elgin Eagles 54-34 in the WOSSAA final at Mother Teresa.
  A 17-6 first quarter put the Flames ahead to stay as they led 29-17 at the intermission.
  Flames guard Mackenzie Puklicz said it was just a case of riding the momentum from the fourth quarter of their TVRA Central Conference final win Tuesday over Oakridge.
  "Ever since the quarterfinals, we've been ramped up and we were ramped up today," said Puklicz, who had a game-high 24 points. "We've had a really rough season. We had two ACL injuries to two star players (post player Rachel Fradgley and guard Lauren Frijia), but they came and supported us all year and without them we wouldn't be here.
  "We'd never played (East Elgin) before, so we just had to play our game and see how things went. Personally, I was more worried about the city final, because we'd lost to Oakridge already. Getting by that game was like a dream.
  "I've won WOSSAA twice as a junior, but there's no OFSAA for juniors, so this feels totally different."
  The Flames now head to the OFSAA AAA tournament Nov. 22-24 in Belle River and a relieved head coach Jim Foster admitted there wer concerns about how much his team had left in the emotional gas tank after Tuesday.
  "It seems the kids were really geared up for that game and you wonder if they can get geared up again. But what really helped us was getting off to that great start.
  "This is huge for our program. Overcoming everything, with a start to the season that was chaotic to say the least. And I think the RMC game in the quarterfinals was when they really started to believe they could do this and they never gave up after that."
  Eagles head coach Chris Wismer said the Flames were just too hot at the outset.
  "They didn't want to miss," he said. "They're good shooters and they're capable of doing that, but I was hoping they'd miss the odd one. And we didn't hit our layups."