Canton Girls Basketball Wins Conference Championship Game

The Kensington Lakes Activities Association Kensington Conference South Division champs, the Canton Chiefs, hosted division runner-up John Glenn for the Kensington Conference Championship game Tuesday evening in Canton.

It was a fierce battle, with Canton leading most of the game until the last seconds of the third quarter when John Glenn took the lead, 36-35. Fortunately, those would be Glenn’s last points as the Chiefs went on a 19-0 run in the fourth to win, 54-36, taking the conference championship for the second year in a row. 

“It feels really good,” said Canton’s Kayla Bridges with a big smile. “I think we were faced with a lot of challenges today, but it was our persistence. We just kept going at them. The crowd got into the game and we just wore them down. We made them play defense for a long time and that kind of wore them down and that was our whole strategy. We put good defense on them, and everything came together in the fourth quarter.”

Canton coach Brian Samulski was impressed with his team’s big fourth-quarter play.

“I thought the fourth quarter, we really buckled down and defended hard,” Samulski said. “The key was not only our defense, but we took care of the ball in the fourth. They picked it up and got after it and took care of business. 

“Glenn did a nice job of extending their D, and getting after us. [In the third] they extended and we took a step back. Glenn is so athletic, and they’re such a good team, I thought their man to man sort of made us start to pressure and do things we didn’t want to do. In the fourth we went back to do what we wanted to do.”

The Chiefs host Grand Blanc Thursday for the KLAA title.