Mississauga’s Amihere, an Oakville school grad, leads No. 1 Gamecocks into NCAA tourney

Mississauga native and Oakville private school grad Laeticia Amihere and the South Carolina Gamecocks begin their quest Friday for a national women’s basketball title.

Amihere and the No. 1 seeded Gamecocks tip off the 2022 Women’s NCAA Tournament this afternoon against No. 16 seed Howard University in the Greensboro Region.

South Carolina is the No. 1 seed overall after spending all season as the Associated Press No. 1 team.

An early graduate of King’s Christian Collegiate in Oakville in late 2018, Amihere was the 10th-ranked women’s basketball prospect in her class when she went to South Carolina.

The athletic junior forward and Canadian national women’s team player had already recovered suffered two ACL tears by the time she joined the Gamecocks.

Just months after Amihere had recovered from her first ACL surgery on her left knee, she felt her right knee pop in a training session with Canada’s National Women’s Team in December of 2018.

It wasn’t until just before the 2020-21 season that Amihere, who started dunking at the age of 14, would attempt her first dunk in three years and the Canadian hasn’t looked back since.

The 20-year-old six-foot-four junior, who mostly came off the bench, finished fourth in team scoring, averaging 7.1 points and 4 rebounds in 18.3 minutes per game.