Semiahmoo head coach Allison McNeill will try to coach her Totems to a threepeat B.C. title in the spring of 2021. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

B.C. Quad-A girls 2020-21 preseason hoops rankings: With No. 1 Semiahmoo eyeing a three-peat run, we break down the Top 10 teams

LANGLEY — For Surrey’s Semiahmoo Totems, the beat goes on.Fifty-seven straight victories and counting against B.C. foes, back-to-back senior girls Quad-A titles, and this coming season, a chance to complete as dominant a three-season span as any team across any sport in the history of B.C. high school athletics.It was back on March 3 of […]

Burnaby South Rebels' rising Grade 11 guard Jimmy Zaborniak will try and help his preseason No. 1-ranked team to its third B.C. Quad-A title over the past four seasons this coming March at the LEC. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

B.C. 4-A 2020-21 rankings: No. 1 Burnaby South treading on historic ground, we break down each of AAAA’s top 15 teams!

It goes without saying that the issues and challenges we find ourselves facing on a daily basis are of a magnitude we would never have expected earlier this month as we sat together at the Langley Events Centre to watch two weeks of B.C. high school basketball championships.And certainly, there are a lot of things […]

Duchess Park's Caleb Lyons will return for his senior season as one of the most seasoned go-to scorers in B.C. senior boys high school basketball. (Photo by Paul Yates property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Gliding to the irons, St. Thomas Aquinas' rising senior standout Rory Goodwin was a key force in his North Vancouver team's battle with Prince Rupert's Charles Hays Rainmakers during the quarterfinals of the B.C. senior boys Double-A basketball championships earlier this month at the LEC. (Photo by Paul Yates property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

B.C. 2-A 2020-21 preseason rankings: It’s crowded at the top, but battle-tested St. Thomas Aquinas’ rising trio makes Fighting Saints our pick at No. 1

LANGLEY — A funny thing happened along the way to an inspiring season-ending string of 10 games for North Vancouver’s youthful St. Thomas Aquinas Fighting Saints. They got better and better, even though they got a whole lot younger.

Fernie Falcons' rising senior big man Nesta Malcolm (right) battles Highroad Academy senior Dawson Hartskamp during Final Four clash earlier this month at the B.C. 1-A boys basketball championships staged at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Paul Yates property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

B.C. 1-A 2020-21 preseason rankings: Dynamic Kootenays’ duo of Hannemann and 6-foot-7 Malcolm has No. 1 Fernie Falcons soaring

FERNIE — Fully encircled by the Rocky Mountains and sitting in the southeastern most corner of our province, Fernie (pop. 5,000) is not the first place you’re apt to label as a burgeoning hoops hotbed.Yet when the 2020-21 B.C. high school basketball season tips off this December, Fernie Secondary’s fantastic yet faraway Falcons will wear […]

B.C. boys high school basketball is among the 19 sports whose independent commissions would cease to exist pending an April 19 vote on a new proposal from B.C. School Sports. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School

What’s the future of B.C. high school sports? Our 460 member schools head to the polls April 19 to cast votes amidst BCSS’ bid for critical reform!

LANGLEY — Proponents from both sides agree on one thing, and that is at its fundamental core, it’s the biggest issue ever put to vote in the history of B.C. high school sports.

Quinn Ngawati and the SMUS Blue Jags claimed The Boot spoils in 2017. (Photo by Kyle Slavin property of SMUS athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Rugby

B.C. high school rugby 2020: As ‘The Boot’ classic enters its second quarter-century, SMUS vs. Oak Bay gets a TV audience

VICTORIA — One of the gems of the B.C. high school rugby calendar becomes less of a secret outside of the provincial capital beginning this season.That’s because Thursday’s 26th playing of the annual Boot Game (6:30 p.m.) between storied rivals St. Michaels University School Blue Jags and Oak Bay Barbarians at historic Centennial Stadium on […]

G.W. Graham head coach Jake Mourtizen finds his wife Sarah, the school's head girls basketball coach, for a post-game embrace after his team's win over the Duchess Park Condors. (Photo by Paul Yates property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

A Sunday Read: As G.W. Graham Grizzlies win first B.C. title, its emotional coach Jake Mouritzen admits: “…I still don’t really understand what’s happening”

LANGLEY — This is a story about reaching that moment in life where everything and everyone you love the most has come together with such dreamlike precision that no matter how hard you train your focus, all the edges remain a blur.“I can’t explain it,” Jake Mouritzen says with elated exhaustion in a voice so […]

Wading through a sea of Burnaby South fans who have stormed the court at the Langley Events Centre is Rebels' 6-foot-10 senior Sasha Vujisic. (Photo by Paul Yates property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

A Sunday Read: How Burnaby South’s Sasha Vujisic made the final game of his high school career his best, leading Rebels past Kelowna for a B.C. Quad A crown

LANGLEY — Sasha Vujisic walked into his team’s halftime locker room Saturday night at the Langley Events Centre and had a little talk with himself.“The truth is, I was just playing bad,” said Vujisic, Burnaby South’s 6-foot-10 senior forward in self-critique of the opening half of the final game of his high school basketball career.Considering […]

The Charles Hays Rainmakers of Prince Rupert celebrate a win over King George and a repeat as B.C. Double-A basketball champions. (Photo by Paul Yates property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

B.C. Double-A championship final 2020: MVP Leighton follows in footsteps of McChesney to give Rupert’s Rainmakers a repeat B.C. championship

LANGLEY — The Rainmakers were the reigning champs who came to Langley this week to prove that while slightly re-tooled, they still had the stuff for a repeat.Despite losing the talents of 6-foot-9 2019 MVP Liam McChesney, Prince Rupert’s Charles Hays Rainmakers soldiered on and refined an identity built around both senior leader Kai Leighton […]