Recap The Court

Jacob Smith

OBA championships with the YNBA Avengers, U SPORTS championship with the McMaster Marauders, scoring and rebounding accolades in the OUA and an established voice outside of the game has made Sarah Gates a pillar for women’s basketball in Canada. From Newmarket Ontario, Sarah is the all-time leading scorer for the Marauders and a U SPORTS champion, and it all started winning provincial titles with the YNBA Avengers.

Playing in the OBA started Sarah Gates’ basketball career, and through eight years with the YNBA Avengers, Sarah gained vital experience against top schools in Canada and the US. “There were six of us that stayed together from grade 5 to grade 12. It was a great experience playing competitive basketball. We would play in the USA and Canada” Sarah said of her OBA experience.

Sarah won in the last four of her years in the OBA, and the exposure to Canadian and American schools helped her decide where her next step would be. Knowing that a Canadian school would be a better fit for her education, a visit with the basketball team set her sights on the McMaster University Marauders and a program that would expose her to opportunities on the court, and push her off the court.

“When I went on my visit (to McMaster) I met a bunch of the team, a bunch of the coaching staff…it felt like a competitive team but also a bunch of friends. It was going to be a fun experience on and off the court.”

Sarah came into a McMaster team in 2017 lead by Hilary Hanaka, Alexis Spadafora, Erin Burns and Linnaea Harper who instilled a culture of working hard and reaping the benefits. “The vets took the first years and showed us how to work. What they instilled was work hard and you’ll get the results. In first year when we went to nationals and didn’t get what we wanted, we didn’t hold a grudge, we held that fire and used it as motivation the next year and that’s why we won. The vets helped keep that fire and lead by example.”

After a 20-4 season in Sarah’s first year with a OUA silver, she earned a spot on the OUA All-Rookie Team averaging 10 points and 4.8 rebounds shooting 42 per cent from the field. Playing 24 games in her first year, Sarah got her first start in 2018 where she became a pivotal piece of the Marauders lineup and started 19 of 22 games on the way to a championship season at the OUA and U SPORTS level.

The 2018-2019 McMaster Marauders still led by veterans Hilary Hanaka, Linnaea Harper and Erin Burns, finished with a 21-3 record. After wins against Brock, Carleton and Ottawa, they went to the U SPORTS Women’s Basketball Final 8 as OUA champions and took down Concordia, Saskatchewan and Laval to earn the national title not far away from home at the gym of the now TMU Bold.

“That team (2018-2019) was stacked and we didn’t even know it as we were playing. Having the experience from the year prior was good, it gave us a sense of familiarity with that pressure of nationals,” Sarah said of her experience returning to nationals to reclaim what she fell short of the year before.

“Nationals being at TMU was huge because each game felt like a home game. The gym was very packed with Marauders fans, with maroon and you could hear them cheering.”

As McMaster transitioned to a different group of veterans in 2019 and the core that Sarah came in with grew, the culture that head coach Theresa Burns set really started to take shape and Sarah’s accomplishments on and off the court. “(Theresa Burns) is the goat. She’s so known in Hamilton, everyone thinks she’s super intimidating but she’s one of my biggest role models. She know’s everything about basketball. You can ask the most redundant question but she’ll still make you better with her answer. She made the environment a place where players go there to get better on and off the court.”

Off the court, Sarah started the McMaster Women’s Athletic Leadership Committee during the 2021-2022 season and found her passion which would lead to starting She’s The Moment in her year post graduation playing professionally in Germany, where she’s committed to growing women in sport from all levels in High School running camps to keep women in sport, or University focusing on leveraging sport into your career.

On the court, the 2021-2022 and 22-23 season for Sarah saw her take the reigns for the Marauders in terms of being the veteran, and doing everything she could for the team to get back to a national championship. “The personal records are great but what means the most to me is the national championship. None of the records would’ve happened if it wasn’t for my players and coaches.”

The records are extensive for the player who made the really challenging seem really simple every time she stepped on the court, but the all-time leading scorer for the Marauders had her best statistical season in her final year averaging 27 points and 7.8 rebounds on the way to a Nan Copp U SPORTS Player of the Year award, a OUA First Team All-Star and OUA Player of the Year season for the 17-5 McMaster Marauders.

Five seasons at McMaster with a championship and individual records, but as Sarah was finishing her time she felt like she still had yet to reach the pinnacle of her career. Through the training McMaster set her up with, Sarah wanted to pursue basketball at a higher level, and that led her to playing professionally in Germany.

“McMaster set me up good with the training and making me feel like I wanted to play at the next level. I felt like I was still going up in my basketball career and I wasn’t getting stagnant, I still had goals I wanted to achieve so I said let’s do it. The pieces fell into place and I ended up in Germany. The season got cut short because of injury but I definitely want to continue.”

Now after a year of playing professionally, Sarah has her sights set on the best of the best, and putting her name on the international stage playing the best in the world. “I want to get to the best league I can get to, whether that’s eurocup or the euroleague, I don’t want to sell myself short.” Sarah says the next few years are for building her pro resume and ultimately wearing Canada across her chest whether that’s at the 3×3 level which she has experience in with Team Ontario, or the national team.