Fraser Valley's Deanna Tuchscherer and the rest of the Cascades have their highest national ranking in a decade this week at No. 2 in the latest U SPORTS national poll. (Photo by Tanner Geringer property of UFV Cascades athletics 2022. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball University Women's Basketball

Made-in-B.C. and ranked No. 2 in the nation! Here’s three big reasons the Fraser Valley Cascades could be Bronze Baby contenders!

ABBOTSFORD — Ten years after, there’s a new band of basketball teammates shining the spotlight on the Cascades’ women’s basketball program at the University of the Fraser Valley.Precisely one decade after its most successful Canada West regular season, one it which it went 18-4 and was perched wire-to-wire within the top four of the U […]

Bringing focus to team basketball, UFV Cascades' veteran forward Natalie Rathler (centre with ball) locks eyes with hard-cutting teammate Alexis Worrell during a game against the TWU Spartans. The 8-1 teams meet for a pair this weekend in Abbotsford. (Photo by Gibi Saini property of University of the Fraser Valley athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

Cascades thriving on its “one tough shot” mantra! Canada West’s top defence keys empowering ripple effect as 8-1 UFV hosts 9-1 TWU in weekend summit series!

ABBOTSFORD — It’s an axiom which has echoed through countless Fraser Valley Cascades’ women’s basketball practices over the 20 years in which Al Tuchscherer has served as the program’s head coach.This season, however, you could say in a figurative sense that those echoes have become deafening.“We always say that we want to give teams one […]

Fraser Valley point guard Maddy Gobeil and the rest of Abbotsford's Cascades learned a lot about their potential and process with a series of three preseason games against some of the best competition in Canada. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of University of the Fraser Valley athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

UFV Women’s Basketball 2021-22: Emerging Cascades keep bar set high following a revelatory three-game test against nation’s best teams!

ABBOTSFORD — Even in the best of times  it’s a difficult proposition to put together a preseason schedule and know precisely the level of competition you’re going to be facing.Factor in the uncertainties of COVID as well as the returning status of any number of opposition veterans forced to keep one eye on their academic […]

G.W. Graham's 6-foot-2 forward Julia Tuchscherer (left) will graduate a year ahead of schedule and join her dad Al and older sister Deanna with the Fraser Valley Cascades next season. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of Wilson Wong photography 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball University Women's Basketball

Post-marked UFV: How GWG Grizzlies’ Grade 11 post Julia Tuchscherer will pivot into the paint with U Sports’ Cascades next season!

ABBOTSFORD — For about as long as Julia Tuchscherer can remember, she’s had a knack for making all of the numbers add up.She’s even done it in these challenging times, heading down the home stretch of her Grade 11 year at Chilliwack’s G.W. Graham Secondary with a 4.0 grade point average within a core of […]

Longtime former Pitt Meadows senior boys basketball coach Rich Goulet passed away Sunday at the age of 74. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of Wilson Wong photography 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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RIP, Coach: For Pitt Meadows & STM’s Rich Goulet (1946-2021), basketball was his student, his teacher and the air that he’d breathe

PITT MEADOWS — On Sunday, on what would be the final day of a life so completely devoted to his greatest passion, Rich Goulet made a simple request.“Scoresheets. He was asking for scoresheets from a Grade 9 basketball tournament,” said his nephew Dave Goulet who was bedside at the hospital, tending to the needs of […]

The Fraser Valley Cascades' dynamic duo of forward Deanna Tuchscherer (left) and point guard Maddy Gobeil are a pair of 19-year-old Cascades finding their solution to the cancelled Canada West campaign by signing pro contracts to play in Europe over the fall-winter season. (Photos by Dan Kinvig property of UFV athletics 2020. All rights reserved. Photo graphic by Gabriel Lynn)
Feature University Women's Basketball

A SUNDAY READ: Banking their Euros! Postmarked ‘Abby, BC’, UFV’s teen duo of Tuchscherer & Gobeil find their bounce with overseas pro careers

ABBOTSFORD — It was a basketball migration along a flight path neither could have ever anticipated just a handful of months ago.Yet this past Thursday, as both U SPORTS and its conference affiliate, Canada West, announced the official cancellation of the remainder of the 2020-21 university sports season (including basketball) due to the ongoing virulence […]

Fraser Valley women's basketball players (left to right) Natalie Rathler, Maddy Gobeil and Lauryn Walker each provided inspirational moments this week as part of the Cascades' week-long virtual climb of Mt. Everest. (Photos by Dan Kinvig property of UFV Athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved. Photo graphic special for Varsity Letters courtesy of Gabriel Lynn)
Feature University Women's Basketball

A Sunday Read: How UFV Cascades’ women’s basketball strengthened its bond on a virtual climb to the top of Mt. Everest!

ABBOTSFORD — Al Tuchscherer was watching the nightly news recently when a story came across the screen which immediately sparked his imagination.“They had a human interest story about this gentleman who I guess always wanted to climb Mt. Everest,” began the head coach of the Fraser Valley Cascades women’s basketball team. “And he decided to take […]

Feature Podcast

The Varsity Letters PODCAST 11.20.19 edition: Vernon football’s Sean Smith, UFV women’s hoop coach Al Tuchscherer & the LEC’s Gary Ahuja

LANGLEY — The Varsity Letters’ podcast is back, and ready to not only chat about football and basketball, but about the home for so many of our province’s top high school invitational and championship tournaments. First, in the spirit of this Saturday’s Subway Bowl Final Four weekend at B.C. Place Stadium, Vernon Panthers’ head coach […]

Fraser Valley's Taylor Claggett is headed into her senior season with the Cascades relishing the experiences of her team's recent trip to India (left, with teammate Amanda Thompson). (Photos property UFV athletics 2019. All rights reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

A Passage To India: The travels of UFV senior Taylor Claggett yield new perspectives as Cascades star preps for a torch-passing season

ABBOTSFORD — So many time-honoured adages centre around the fact that greatness remains elusive without first taking a willing step outside of your comfort zone.Taylor Claggett wants to lead her team to the top of the Canadian university basketball mountain this coming spring, so maybe it was fitting that she stepped outside of hers earlier […]

A long shot from the outset of her university basketball career, Fraser Valley Cascades head coach Al Tuchscherer now calls rising fourth-year forward Veronica Kobes the ultimate walk-on. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of University of the Fraser Valley athletics 2019. All Rights Reserved)
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UFV’s Veronica Kobes: The walk-on who refused to walk away speaks to her dual dreams of a career with Cascades hoops and a med school future

ABBOTSFORD — In its most figurative sense, basketball has grudgingly given in. For years, it had watched the unrelenting will to learn from the walk-on who refused to walk away, deciding finally that she had earned the right to be its friend and confidant.