Fischer, Blackbird lead Lambton to national championship berth
The Lambton College Lions women’s basketball team will have Sarnia-Lambton’s support as they play in the opening game of the 2024 CCAA Women’s Basketball Championships in Lloydminster, Alberta on Wednesday, March 13th at Lakeland College.
With strong roots in Chatham-Kent, the team will also receive a lot of support from the south.
The Lambton women’s basketball team, the 2024 OCAA gold medalists, will take on The King’s University Eagles, the 2024 ACAC Silver Medalists, in the opening game of the CCAA championship. Tip off is at 1 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time).
Wallaceburg’s Brett Fischer and Walpole Island’s Legacie Blackbird are both starters on the Lions. Fischer is in her first-year at Lambton after playing for four years at Western. She has been a force for Lambton College. Fischer, a Second-Team West Division All-Star, ranked second in the league with an average of 10.9 rebounds per game. Her 84 offensive rebounds ranked first in the OCAA, while her 174 total rebounds ranked second.
The Lions come into the 2024 CCAA Women’s Basketball National Championships as the top rebounding team in Canada during the regular season (50.3 rpg), and Fischer was a big reason for the team’s success in the paint.
Blackbird was named to the OCAA final four tournament all-star team. She transferred from Fanshawe, where she was on the Falcons 2020 OCAA championship team.
Both Fischer and Blackbird played for Janine Day at Wallaceburg District Secondary School. Day coached and taught at Wallaceburg for almost two decades, building one of southwestern Ontario’s strongest girls’ high school basketball programs, before moving on as head coach at Lambton College a couple years ago.
Lambton assistant coaches Pauline Turner, Katie Barnes and Jeff Byrne also have ties to Wallaceburg. Team manager Marissa Beselaere, a former Lions player, is from Chatham and played in high school for the Ursuline Lancers.
During the regular season, the Lions posted a record of 14-2 overall, and they won the program’s first-ever OCAA Championship in Women’s Basketball back on Sunday, March 3. This is the first time that the Lambton women’s basketball program has competed in the National Tournament, and they enter as the top-ranked team on their side of the bracket.
The Lions are on an 11-game winning streak and haven’t lost yet in 2024.