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Orangeville basketball players compete with Team Ontario at Canadian Championships

August 8, 2024   ·   1 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

Two Orangeville basketball players will compete as members of Team Ontario during the 2024 Women’s National Championships held at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland, from Aug. 5-10.

Emma Firth is a member of the U15 Ontario team, and Ayla Corrigale will compete with the U17 Ontario team. Both girls play on the basketball team at Orangeville District Secondary School and are big contributors on the court.

Tryouts for Team Ontario were an open event. Starting out with a large number of Team Ontario hopefuls, the numbers were cut after each tryout, until coaches had it down to the players who made the teams.

Emma started playing basketball when she was just six years old. She was inspired by her Mom, who also played the sport. She started out playing with the Orangeville Hawks.

“In Grade 8, I went to Brampton. That’s when I started taking it seriously,” Emma explained. “Playing high school basketball is good, I liked it. It was fun,” she said of playing the ODSS team.

Emma is a junior who will be going into Grade 10 in the fall but played ‘up’ as a member of the senior squad last season.

“For Team Ontario, they have tryouts, and they start with the top 50, then get it down to a team of 12,” Emma explained. “After they cut down the numbers, it was good competition. It was fun.”

Emma plays the forward position on the court.

She plans to continue her basketball career through high school and wants to compete at the university level.

During the Championships, every province enters a team to compete.

Ayla is a member of the U17 Ontario Team and also plays with the senior team at ODSS.

“I started playing in Grade 3 with the Orangeville Hawks,” Ayla said of her start in the sport. “I kept playing every year, and kept getting better and better every year. Eventually I went down to Bramptom to play Juel, which is a bit of a higher league. We got introduced to the whole prep, OSBA world where it was more competitive.”

Ayla started playing with the Orangeville Prep team.

This is Ayla’s second time with Team Ontario. She previously played on the U15 Team Ontario.

Ayla is the team’s point guard.

“I started taking the sport seriously in Grade 8 and 9,” Ayla explained.

Moving up to the U17 level, Ayla said the competition level goes up a lot.

“I would say it’s more physical. Everyone is faster, one year older, better, and stronger, and they all have one year more experience. I’m looking forward to going out and competing against the other provinces. Last year was a really fun experience.”

The competition in Newfoundland will bring the best women’s basketball players in the country to the tournament.


Readers Comments (1)

  1. Greg Firth says:

    Two amazing local athletes who also compete for Orangeville Prep at Athlete Institute. Good luck Emma and Ayla.

    All games are live streamed on Canada Basketballs YouTube channel

    Both Ontario teams have made the semi finals and play today.

     Reply




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