Kaleena Smith scored 50 points, including 14 after regulation, to lead Ontario Christian to a 96-87 double-overtime triumph over San José Archbishop Mitty in a high-noon showdown between the top two teams in the state Saturday in the featured game of the Kay Yow Showcase at Mater Dei.
Tatiana Griffin contributed 20 points and 18 rebounds, while Dani Robinson added 16 points for the No. 1-ranked Knights (20-0), who overcame a 12-point deficit with four minutes left in the fourth quarter. Smith was fouled with 4.7 seconds left and made both free throws to pull Ontario Christian even at 78-78. Archbishop Mitty missed a three-pointer at the buzzer.
“I’m pretty confident I’ll make them in that situation,” Smith, who reached the 50-point mark for the second time this season, said of her free throws. “This is what I do. I was in a similar spot in the Southern Section finals last year and made them.”
Smith, a junior, made nine of 10 from the foul line and added four steals and three assists. Her career high for points in a game is 63, which she accomplished her freshman year.
No. 2-ranked Archbishop Mitty (12-2), which lost to Etiwanda in the Open Division state finals last season, got 25 points from McKenna Woliczko and 21 from Ze’Ni Patterson.
The Northern and Southern California powerhouses could meet again for the state championship in March.
“During a timeout in the fourth quarter I reminded them why they’re here,” Knights coach Aundre Cummings said. “The girls love being No. 1 in the country and the attention that brings but with that comes the pressure to prove yourselves.”
The incoming Archbishop of Canterbury has been urged to scrap plans to spend £100m on slavery reparations.
In a letter seen by the Sunday Times, a group of Conservative MPs and peers has urged Dame Sarah Mullally to stop the Church of England from spending the money.
They claim the funds can only legally be spent on churches and the payment of clergy wages.
In a statement to the paper, the Church Commissioners said that arrangements for the fund were being “developed transparently – in line with charity law”.
Mullally, who currently serves as the Bishop of London, will take up her new role as the first-ever female Archbishop of Canterbury next month.
The Church of England’s slavery reparations proposal was announced in January 2023 following the publication of a report into the Church’s historical links to transatlantic slavery.
The report, requested by the Church’s financing arm – the Church Commissioners – found that a fund established by Queen Anne in 1704 to help poor Anglican clergy was used to finance “great evil”.
According to the report, the fund, known as Queen Anne’s Bounty, invested in African chattel enslavement and took donations derived from it.
After the report’s publication, the then-Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said he was “deeply sorry” for the links and said action would be taken to address the Church’s “shameful past”.
The Church Commissioners announced a new £100m fund, committed over a nine-year period, to be spent on “a programme of investment, research and engagement” in communities damaged by the enslavement of African people during the transatlantic slave trade.
However, in their letter to Mullally, MPs and peers have urged the Church to focus on “strengthening parishes” rather than on pursuing what they describe as “high-profile and legally dubious vanity projects”.
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Tory MP Katie Lam is among those urging the Church to scrap its reparations plan
The letter, whose co-authors include MPs Katie Lam, Chris Philp and Claire Coutinho, adds: “By law, the endowment must be used to support parish ministry, maintain church buildings, and care for the Church’s historic records.
“At a moment when churches across the country are struggling to keep their doors open — many even falling into disrepair — it’s wrong to try and justify diverting £100 million to a project entirely separate from those core obligations.”
A spokesperson for the Church Commissioners told the Sunday Times: “The Church Commissioners, as a 320-year-old Christian in-perpetuity endowment fund, has committed £100 million to set up a new investment fund to support healing, justice and repair, in response to the discovery of its historic links with transatlantic African chattel enslavement.
“This is consistent with the Church of England’s Fourth Mark of Mission: to ‘seek to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation’.
“Governance arrangements are being developed transparently — in line with charity law, our fiduciary duties, and our moral purpose — to ensure proper oversight and accountability.”
Mullally will formally replace Welby in a ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral in January before being enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral in March.
A former NHS chief nurse, the 63-year-old became a priest in 2006 and was appointed as the first female Bishop of London in 2018 – the third most senior member of clergy in the Church of England.
The Church has been without someone in the top job for almost a year after Justin Welby resigned over a safeguarding scandal.
