LANGLEY — We’ve gone final from Day 1 of the 2025 B.C. senior boys basketball championships.
Included are eight game stories and photos. We hope you enjoy.
Our thanks go out to out team of writers (Gary Kingston, Dan Kinvig, Ian French, Gary Ahuja) and to our photographers (Gordon Kalisch, Wilson Wong and Ryan Molag)
We will be back tomorrow with reports and phots from the quarterfinals.
I thank you once again for your patience and for being a loyal follower right here at VarsityLetters.ca
Howard Tsumura
B.C. SENIOR BOYS
79TH B.C. CHAMPIONSHIPS
LANGLEY EVENTS CENTRE
SOUTH COURT, CENTRE COURT, ARENA BOWL, FIELD HOUSE
TRIPLE-A
DAY 1
SWEET 16 ROUND
TOP HALF DRAW
QUADRANT A
No. 2 WINDSOR 76 No. 15 CALEDONIA 39
By HOWARD TSUMURA
(Varsity Letters)
LANGLEY — Take Marco Fong back to the days of early December, and the head coach of North Vancouver’s Windsor Wolves knows his team has come a long, long ways.
Just four days removed from the completion of the B.C. Double-A football and soccer championships, both of which just happened to be won by the Wolves, Windsor’s hoop squad was welcoming five key players into it’s rotation with exactly zero practices.
The end result: A 57-51 opening round loss at its season-opening Tsumura Basketbal Invitational Select 16 bracket to the Richmond Colts.
By the time Wednesday morning rolled around, however, and the opening tip got the B.C. senior boys Triple-A championships underway at the LEC’s Centre Court, the Wolves were looking like heavyweight contenders for a provincial title.
No. 2-seeded Windsor, the Sea-to-Sky champions, fresh off defeating St. Patrick’s in the zone championhip final, rolled to a 76-39 win over Terrace’s Caledonia Kermodes.
Perrin Taylor, the 6-foot-6 senior forward and one-sport standout, scored 20 points to lead the winners.
Fong said after the game, that ever since his team went 2-2 at TBI “…we’ve only lost one game the rest of the way.
“We were playing a little out of sorts with not single full practice,” Fong said of their last appearance at the LEC. “We came in to (to TBI) to work out some kinks and the other guys hadn’t even practiced with us.”
The football players included Oscar Rouillard, Sam Sachter, Xavian Washington, and Wolves’ quarterback Emmet Ward, and Jude Cortiula from the soccer team.
The Dukes will face the winner of the Richmond Colts-Sir Charles Tupper Tigers in a 5:15 p.m. quartefinal Thursday.
And it’s no secret that if the seeds carry the day that the Wolves could potentially see a familiar foe in the Final Four.
“St. Pat’s is a well-known brand in Triple A ball and it gives us a lot of confidence to see that we can play well and hopefully go deep in this tournament,” Fong said. “That is the kind of confidence we want to have. And if we keep suceeding, we’re likely to see them again. And if we do we are looking for another challenge.”
Rouillard added 13 points for the winners, Lukas Chung another 11, while Martin Mosny and Elias Neilson added seven apiece.
Caledonia was led by the 14 points of Simon Dominguez.
No. 7 RICHMOND 77. No. 10 SIR CHARLES TUPPER 61
By HOWARD TSUMURA
(Varsity Letters)
LANGLEY — In a long gone era, they were the toast of the entire B.C. high school sports world.
Alas, the final two decades of the 20th century are long in the rearview mirror these days, and the excellence that former head coach Bill Diusbrow brought to the Richmond Colts is some more the stuff of folklore.
Danylo Afanasiyevskyy, a 2018 Richmond grad, isn’t trying to recreate the 1980’s and 90’s on Lulu Island, but the 2024-25 Colts are sure determined to do whatever they can to reclaim some of that past success.
The grads have come to our games, and they know we have lots of banners… we’re just trying to add banners to the wall,” said the 24-year-old Afanasiyevskyy after the Colts, and their heart-and-soul leader Clement Lai wore down East Vancovuer’s Sir Charles Tupper to set up a 5:15 p.m. quarterfinal clash on Thursday.
The highlighted moments of Richmond’s season, as it pertained to their ability to get to the B.C.’s seemed so anchored to its lack of success against crosstown rival and B.C. tourney regular A.R. MacNeill.
Those Pesky Ravens actually beat the Colts three straight times this season, including in the Tsumura Basketball Invitational in December, and not too long ago in the championship final of the Richmond Cup, a humbling 75-57 setback that may well have cast doubt in the minds of many of their ability to get to the provincials.
Yet the plucky Colts, after beating surging L.A. Matheson of Surrey 103-92 in overtime in the South Fraser semifinals to earn their provincial passport, came back to earn their zone’s top seed by finally beating MacNeill in the final 70-64.
And thus the confidence of two huge wins heading into B.C.’s was clearly evident after a tight first quarter.
“Our defence was relaly good, especially after the second quarter,” said Afanasiyevskyy. “We started to collapse the paint. That was our plan. They are a really aggressive team.
“Other than that we kept their best player to not his best game,” Afanasiyevskyy added of Tupper’s dynamic James Zongo, who finished with 10 points. “He is a great player. Then Clement had a big game and stepped up and hit some big shots, he is one of the hardest workers I know. There’s more ahead of him.”
Kristian Popadich added 18 for the Colts and Justin Chen another nine.
Sabin Nowak led the Tigers with 16, while Holden Sawatzky also scored 10 points.
QUADRANT B
NO. 11 MARK ISFELD 78 No. 6 MAGEE 57
By HOWARD TSUMURA
(Varsity Letters)
LANGLEY — As a head coach, you spend a year preparing yourself for a chance at today.
Will your players be ready?
Are they going to have the stamina?
Will their shot be there for them when it matters most?
And how dang hard are they going to work?
Well, Courtenay’s Mark Isfeld Ice ticked off all of those boxes so emphatically, that its head coach, Blake Tobacca, had to give them their due.
“That was our game plan going in, we wanted to have a great start and work hard,” Tobacca said after his No. 11 Ice roared out of the gates against South Vancouver’s No. 6 Magee Lions, leading 15-0 and 27-7 before the first quarter was even over en route to a 78-57 win.
“We wanted to play our best game of the season and it happened.”
After falling to Nanaimo’s surging Wellington Wildcats in the Vancouver Island championship game, the angry Ice were as cold and calculated in their ways as the meaning of its monosyllabic moniker.
Ice, Ice, baby.
When asked what kind of pressure defence scheme his team had thrown at the Lions, Tobacca didn’t offer much detail.
“We play a missile pressure (defence) and we don’t let up and its four quarters of hard work,” he said, referring your author to an assistant coach if more details were required.
A sage, veteran coach seated nearby on press row offered his translation as “…that just means working harder than the other team.”
Whatever it was, and if such 40 minutes of cohesion can be uncorked tomorrow, would go a long ways towards establishing the Ice as a true tourney underdog.
In fact a win over the No. 3 St. Patricks vs. No. 14 College Heights victor on Thursday would mean a trip to the Friday Final Four.
That, of course, is a full cart ahead of the horse.
Nonetheless, the underdogs were clearly in control against a favoured Magee team which took third in a tough Vancouver Sea-to-Sky zone.
Playing at a frenetic, purposeful pace throughout the first half, Mark Isfeld built a 43-17 lead at the break with just one three-pointer on the ledger.
Daxin Moldenhauer, the 6-foot-4 senior forward, led the way with a game-high 27 points. Nate Boan, a Grade 11 guard, added 19 more. Torr Robertson hit three threes and finished with 11 points.
Jayan Chung, a 6-foot-3 Grade 11 guard, led the Lions with 15 points, while 6-foot-6 senior forward Joseph Peacock, added 10.
No. 3 ST. PATRICKS 92 No. 14 COLLEGE HEIGHTS 69
By HOWARD TSUMURA
(Varsity Letters)
LANGLEY — Unlike a lot of other coaches, Nap Santos can’t look into the eyes of his players and tell precisely how ready they are to play.
“It’s really hard,” the St. Pat’s Celtics boss said after his team played it opening game here on the opening day of the B.C. senior boys Triple-A basketball championships.
So, you really don’t know what you’re going to get?
“Pretty much,” Santos laughed. “But you know what, they pretty much always do and they’re good after a loss.”
Those factors sent trends in the right direction if you were a Celtics fan.
Coming off of a 96-84 loss to North Vancouver’s Windsor Wolves in the championship final of the Vancouver Sea-to-Sky tournament back on Feb. 22 at Killarney Secondary in Vancouver, St. Pat’s has been embroiled in hard, intense practices and pretty much nothing else when it comes to basketball.
And all of that pent of energy was allowed to come to the fore as the No. 3-seeds put together a 13-0 run between the halves to defeat the No. 14 College Heights Cougars of Prince George 92-69.
The win propels the Celtics into a 3:30 p.m. quarterfinal Thursday against the upstart, No. 11 seeds from Courtenay, the Mark Isfled Ice.
“I liked our execution, running our sets, but I think on defence we could have been better giving up 69 points,” said Santos, who following the VSS zone finals sat on the bench as an assistant coach as the school’s junior boys team won the B.C. championship on Feb. 25 at the LEC.
The Celts got 65 points from its three top scorers. Riley Santa Juana led the winners with 28 points, Jakobi Metalabos added 20 points and Jaiden Quan 17 more.
Dillon Pidocke led the Cougars with a game-high 30 points, including six triples. MJ Kim scored 11 more.
Interestingly enough the only two teams within Triple-A to beat St. Patricks this season — the Wellington Wildcats and Windsor Wolves — are both among the field.
At press time, Wellington was in the lead at the half over Vernon while Windsor defeated Caledonia in the day’s first game.
BOTTOM HALF DRAW
QUADRANT C
No. 5 WELLINGTON 63 No. 12 VERNON 47
By HOWARD TSUMURA
(Varsity Letters)
LANGLEY — Last time the Wellington Wildcats checked, Nanaimo was on Vancouver Island.
The Hub City’s Cats really didn’t let it bother them too much, but maybe their was a tinge of jealousy that the zone’s three top Quad-A teams — Spectrum, Oak Bay and Dover Bay — got all the headlines during the regular season.
Grayson Ritzand admitted it was on his mind … a bit, after No. 5 seed Wellington opened its run here at the B.C. senior boys Triple-A championships with a hard-fought 63-47 win over the No. 12 Vernon Panthers.
“You know what, I did and I felt that hoenstly they kind of underestimate us a little bit,” said Ritzand, the ultra-talented 6-foot-5 Grade 11 forward who poured home a game-high 33 points against the Panthers, a bounty which could have been a lot larger had he managed to get his free throw stroke going.
“Especially the last few tournaments before playoffs, I think we showed why we are one of the top team to compete.”
With guard Noah Robertson and 6-foot-7 post Jackson Peters, both also Grade 11s, adding 11 and 10 points respectively, the Wildcats went on a 19-2 game-closing run to turn a tight game into a comfortable win.
Wellington’s resume took a huge boost at the end of January when it won the Rick Hansen Invitational, considered along with the Rich Goulet St. Thomas More Chancellor, the top two Triple-A heavy invitationals on the annual calendar.
In that tourney, the Wildcats opened with an 80-48 win over the MEI Eagles, then closed with a 98-97 win over Vancouver’s St. Patricks Celtics, who at the time were sitting at No. 1 in the Triple-A rankings.
It’s a far cry from a Wellington which, at the LEC’s Tsumura Invitational, went 1-3 against a highly-competitive, largely Quad-A field.
Ritzand explained that there has been a very obvious strengthening of team bonds over the season.
“As a team, honestly, it’s more teamwork, it’s more trusting, giving the ball up instead of being selfish,” began Ritzand. “There’s more talk, more communication and more love. We’ve been coming together as a team.”
Of course, the signature win was its dramatic won over St. Pat’s, a team whose toughness and focus on fundamentals seems built for the provincials.
“That was the No. 1 target on our list for the whole season,” said Ritzand. “We did it and it carried forth. That was probably the thing in our season… is that once we can beat them when they were ranked No. 1, we could beat anyone. And it’s been proven, just like we did today.”
Domenic Zaino led the Panthers with 18 points, while Jeff Curtis added another nine.
Wellington goes on to face the winner of the MEI vs. Edward Milne game in an 8:45 p.m. quarterfinal on Thursday.
No. 4 MEI 77 vs. No. 13 EDWARD MILNE 43
By HOWARD TSUMURA
(Varsity Letters)
LANGLEY — It was about 6:15 p.m. and MEI coach Mike Lee was no where other be found for his post-game interview.
His Abbotsford-based Eagles has just completed a defensive masterclass in the opening round of the B.C. Triple-A opening round, topping a tall and talented Edward Milne Wolverines squad from Sooke by a resounding 77-43 score.
Suddenly, Lee could be spotted headed out of the gym doors, across the hallway and to the doors leading to Arena Bowl, site of the B.C. Quad-A championships where would peek inside.
“Abby just won, hey you guys, Abby just won,” Lee told his players, their parents and the rest of the coaches as they eventually made their way to where he stood.
Indeed, the No. 13-seeds from crosstown Quad-A rival Abbotsford Secondary, had beaten the No. 4-seeded Tamanawis Wildcats 82-77 in the day’s biggest upset.
Before it was even time to talk about the path the Eagles’ themselves have traversed through injury (a torn ACL suffered by the team’s star 6-foot-9 star forward Spencer Tatlock before the start of the season) and tragedy (the sudden passing of Lee’s next-door neighbour, former MEI star and longtime Abby Panthers teacher and coach Prentice Lenz) this season, it was important for Lee to talk about the hoops community in his Eastern Fraser Valley city.
“It’s a unique experience with B.C. Bounce,” Lee said of his club team. “A lot of the kids (on many Abbotsford high school teams) have come through our organization.
“Even after Hansen game, I was in tears walking through that line because three of those (Rick Hansen) boys I’ve known since they were eight years old and it’s ending,” Lee said of the fact that his Eagles beat the Hurricanes 59-47 at the LEC within an East Valley zone which sends only one team to the provincials.
The Eagles fought hard to get here, and that fight just continued Wednesday against Milne.
Head coach Trevor Bligh’s well-drilled group carries a lot of size, and Lee said that he had no idea what his team was up against until he looked at the game program.
“Today we came into this game not knowing or seeing any film, then got the program and saw 6-8, 6-6- 6-6,” recounted Lee. “Oh boy. OK. And then it just repositioned us back to ‘We just need to focus on us’ because our group can compete with anybody. Let’s really worry about what we do and all the noise can silence itself.”
In the end, Edward Milne’s 6-foot-8 Malakai Hills did a lot of damage, scoring a game-high 29 points while the other two, Oscar Hobson and Ryland Davis, did not figure much in the scoring.
MEI’s level of compete is elite provincially, and by the end of the first quarter, they had assumed control of the proceedings.
Gabe Headley led the charge with 20 points, Zeke Lee had 13 points, while Mercer Thiessen and Shaun Madahar each had 10. Micah Enns scored nine.
MEI will now move on to face the No. 5 Wellington Wildcats in an 8:45 p.m. Thursday quarterfinal.
Before he left to talk with his players in the locker room Lee said succinctly: “We compete. We play hard. And we don’t like to lose. I say to the kids we dislike losing more than we like winning.”
QUADRANT D
No. 8 PITT MEADOWS 69 No. 9 A.R. MACNEILL 63
By HOWARD TSUMURA
(Varsity Letters)
LANGLEY — Ethan Verzosa was barely finished his high school playing career with at Pitt Meadows Secondary when he agreed to begin coach a group of the school’s then ninth-graders.
On Wednesday, as the 2025 B.C. senior boys Triple-A basketball championships opened at the Langley Events Centre, the wee ones were populating one of the most senior-laden rosters in the the tier’s 16-team field.
And man, these Maruaders can play.
“I have stuck wuth them since they were in the ninth grade,” said Pitt’s 24-year-old head coach Ethan Verzosa, “and honestly, they are like my little brothers now.
“Me and the other two coaches (assistants Lorenzo Leoncio and Nick Robson), we have been telling them our goal is provincials,” continued Verzosa, who has guided the Marauders to the senior provincials for the first time in five seasons. “But for me, I have seen their potential since Day 1.”
That potential manifested itself down the stretch drive in the form of 6-foot-5 senior forward Justin Best.
His steal and open-floor dunk eary in the fourth quarter put Pitt ahead of Richmond’s A.R. MacNeill Ravens 52-44, and from there the Marauders would go on to a 69-63 victory, with Best scoring 10 of his team-high 25 points over the fourth quarter.
“Justin has been one of our hardest workers and he has made a big leap this season,” said Verzosa. “Last year he was one of our best rebounders and one of our best paint touch guys, but now he has evolved his game to transition, he is able to shoot way better, just a lot of confidence in him.”
To contrast Pitt’s success on the offensive end, the Ravens simply had one of those nights shooting.
One of the most dangerous halfcourt teams in Triple-A, MacNeill could only watch as a little too many shots would swirl in and out of the cylinder.
Chad Gammad, the voluminous senior guard, scored 28 points but could have had a lot more.
Guard Saleh Algazal added another 20 points the Richmond squad could only generate six free throw trips the entire game.
For the Marauders, Teagan John and Brodie Magnuson added 15 points apiece.
No. 1 ST. THOMAS MORE vs. No. 16 L.V. ROGERS
By HOWARD TSUMURA, Varsity Letters
LANGLEY — Some No. 16 seeds simply don’t look like No. 16 seeds.
Take Nelson’s L.V. Rogers Grizzlies.
Twelve solid, athletic guys all between 6-foot and 6-foot-5, coached by a former UVic standout in Ryan MacKinnon.
They have travelled from the West Kootenays city of Nelson, and thus, there is not a lot of film of them in action to be found.
And there you are, the St. Thomas More Knights, former B.C. junior champs with some huge wins on their resume this season, as well as a Fraser North championship title.
And when the seedings come out, look at that… you’re No. 1.
Coaching a high school basketball team is about so many things at the same time that it will make your head spin.
And thus the week or so leading up Wednesday’s start of the B.C. senior boys Triple-A championships at the LEC’s Centre Court, as we prefaced was multi-pronged for the Knights and their head coach Denzel Laguerta.
“It was tricky, you definitely have coach’s paranoia and you just want to do such a good job heading into the final tournament of the year,” Laguerta said. “And we couldn’t find any film on them, and coach Ryan (MacKinnon). He played five years at UVic, so we knew that he’d have them prepped. And they played hard.”
St. Thomas More, of course, did manage to pull through 87-55.
The Knights now prepare to face the Pitt Meadows Marauders in a 7 p.m. quarterfinal Thursday, one which doubles as a rematch of the Fraser North championship game STM won late last month.
The Marauders looked confident in its win over A.R. MacNeill on Wednesday and the version the Knights face next will undoubtedly be that much better.
But in the end, as Laguerta asserts, it’s all about self-belief tempered with a healthy dose of respect for the opposition that will carry the day.
On Wednesday, the favourites eventually lived up to their seed, and nothing drove that home more than the final 32-point margin of victory.
Shane Deza scored a game-high 23, UBC-signee Zeru Abera had 16 and Jacob Oreta 14.
Elijah Marcum-McCormick had 13 points, while Lanz Gonzales and Levi Konken scored 10 apiece.
“Our guys were ready for anything and they’re a competitive bunch,” added Laguerta of his players. “I think the guys did a good job of adapting.”
The Knights, of course, have had their share of in-game adversity this season.
At the Tsumura Basketball Invitational in December, the Knights fell behind by 20 points to St. George’s in the quarterfinals but rallied to win 82-80.
STM beat Vancouver College the next night, then lost to Dover Bay in the championship final.
Afterwards, Abera told Varsity Letters of the win over St. Georges: “That was one of the higher ranked Quad-A teams and if we can face this type of adversity, I don’t think there is any other kind of adversity that we face that we won’t be able to get over.”
After Wednesday’s game, Laguerta referenced it.
“It all started with the TBI, and Zeru was not lying when he said that if we can get through games like that, we can get through anything. That confidence has carried us throughout the year and obviously there were hiccups, but the trajectory was upwards and it all starts with the leadership and the resilience of those kids.”
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