Howard Tsumura here, founder and writer of Varsity Letters.
Welcome to the quarterfinal round of the 2024 B.C. Double-A boys basketball championships.
We’ve got complete coverage tonight of all four championship games in each of the four tiers of competition.
Keep checking back here throughout the evening for updates at this tier, but remember you can go to VarsityLetters.ca and scan our daily front page for complete reports from the other three as well.
Our four-person team tonight consists of myself at Quad-A, Dan King at Triple-A, Aaron Martin at Double-A and Nicolas Hauka at Single-A.
GAME REPORTS
QUARTERFINALS
All Stories by AARON MARTIN (Special for Varsity Letters)
TOP HALF DRAW
No. 2 PACIFIC ACADEMY 83 No. 7 LAMBRICK PARK 71
“I think he’s about as good as anyone in the province,” said the Breakers coach. “2A, 3A, 4A, there’s not many players, if any, I would swap him for. We have a ton of guys who are capable of playing a big role and making shots for us, but our offense tends to go how Jaden goes.”
Mesfin showed off his entire arsenal of skills on Thursday, hitting a game-high six triples while also eliciting audible gasps from the crowd on a couple of circus-shot layups. The 6-footer flashed incredible athleticism on several drives, contorting in mid-air to sink a tightly contested bucket multiple times.
Outside of Mesfin, Nathan Chiang and Earl Akene both finished with 13 points apiece, while Oureal Mugueta and Jason Babs-Ishola had eight points each. Blake Fye did his best to keep the Lions in the contest, netting a team-high 23 points in the loss.
Sorensen knows that, while the win is nice, it’s going to need to get cleaned up if they want to push for a title.
“We need to clean up our finishing,” said the Breakers coach. “Definitely need to finish our free throws – I think we shot like 60%, which just isn’t going to be good enough in the final four. When we get opportunities, we have to finish with points – the teams we’re going up against aren’t going to give us easy looks, so when we can scheme them up, we need to take advantage.”
And yet, Sorensen also feels his team has been batte-tested to the point that they’re ready for the challenge.
“This has definitely been our hardest schedule of any year,” noted Sorensen. “It’s been a rollercoaster in terms of momentum – lots of highs, lots of lows. But really, that’s prepared us for games like today, where we know we can stay in it and still get it done.”
No.3 COLLINGWOOD 108 No. 6 JOHN BARSBY 73
LANGLEY — In the superstar-oriented world of modern basketball, the No. 3-ranked Collingswood Cavaliers are doing their best to go in the opposite direction. Their team-oriented tactics paid off in full on Thursday night, as they ran all over the No. 6-seed John Barsby Bulldogs to a final score of 108-73, securing their place in the BC High School Basketball Double-A Championships’ Final Four.
That clash of ideologies was on full display Thursday, especially early. Bulldogs star guard Johnny Durkan was on fire in the first half, seemingly scoring at will from all over – the senior guard knocked down threes, hit contested jumpers, and slashed to the hoop at will, notching 24 points in the opening 20 minutes. Durkan would finish with just 33, after the Cavs made a conscious shift in their defense to take him away as the game went on.
“We knew Barsby played fast, and they proved it early,” recapped Cavaliers head coach Andy Wong. “I think they hit eight threes in the first quarter, and we really had to make a shift to the diamond-and-one, try and clog up lanes and make it harder for them to get clean looks. We put in new stuff on Monday to prepare for an opponent like this, and guys bought in. We got stronger and stronger as the game”
Meanwhile, Logan Albiani led the Cavaliers’ offense with 22 points, and while excellent, he wasn’t the sole focal point of the Cavs’ offense. Collingswood got double digit scoring from five players – Albiani, Finn Murphy (18 points), and Cy Bosa (16), Avi Barha (13), and Amir Mojarrdi (12), while James Holm added nine points of his own.
Yet it seems on brand that the coach’s first individual accolades went to guard Brek Ball, who was stifling as an on-ball defender, and also put up no points.
“It was a really good team effort,” assessed Wong of his own squad. “Guys are consistently stepping up, which is our greatest strength. Brek was excellent on defense, constantly creating problems – that was beautiful. Great games from our bigs in Logan and Avi, some really nice shooting from Cy Bosa.”
However, the coach admits that the team’s success doesn’t lie in the individual performances, but in their ability to complement each other as a unit.
“We don’t really have a single superstar like some teams,” said Wong. “We go five-on, five-off and we go full-out, full-court press the entire game. We can put up some big numbers like we were able to score today by just running it up and down. I think that’s really paid off both in our conditioning, and our confidence. Because we play guys so much, we have guys sitting at number 10 in our rotation who have played as much as another team’s sixth man. So, they know when they get in there that they can get the job done.”
BOTTOM HALF DRAW
No. 4 BRENTWOOD COLLEGE 83 No. 5 WESTSYDE 57
LANGLEY — No. 4-ranked Brentwood College came into the 2024 B.C. Senior Boys Double-A Championships with a chip on their shoulder, and for good reason. They were the tournament runners up last year, falling to the King George Dragons 66-33 in the 2023 championship clash.
On Thursday night, Brentwood earned their way to the tournament semifinals for the fourth straight season, toppling the No.5-ranked Westsyde Whundas 83-57. It was a balanced effort on the offensive end, with Julian Bishop’s team-high 20-points earning him Player of the Game honours.
“It was kind of what we thought it would be,” said Gage of the game against Westsyde. “They’ve got some big, strong guys over there, and I thought our boys did well to compete. For the most part, we were able to match their competitiveness and their toughness, so I was pretty happy.”
Apart from Bishop, Milan Pasquale was solid, notching 18 points, while Taylor Edwards posted 16 and was a dominant force on the glass all night.
“I think we succeeded today by committee – I was pretty happy with Julian, who bounced back after a tough night last night. I thought Taylor struggled a bit in the first half, but really came up big in the second when we needed him. In the meantime, other guys just step up and carry them. That’s something I’m really proud of – on any night, it can be someone different – any of our guys can go out and help us win.”
Despite the significant turnover the roster has undergone since last season – only Pasquale, Edwards, Bishop, and Bern Mabane are left from the 2023 squad – that experience has still greatly influenced the way Brentwood prepared for the 2024 campaign as a whole. More importantly, it changed how they prepared for this moment.
“I’d be lying if I said it had no impact,” admitted Gage of the finals loss last year. “I’ve thought about it, and would love to play King George again. I don’t know that we’ve ever been part of a game like that one last year, and would love a shot to play them again, but make no mistake, we’re ready to play anyone we have to.”
In a wild turn of events, Brentwood will have to be ready for Langley Christian, as the Lightning stunned the tournament-favourite Dragons in the last quarterfinal matchup 63-56 later Thursday night.
However, Gage believes that the system they’ve built upon will have them ready to face any opponent.
“Coming off of last year, we obviously lost a lot of big pieces, so for a lot of these guys, it was just about buying into what we need to do to be successful,” said Gage. “From my perspective, that all starts and ends at the defensive end of the floor. I really believe that guys have bought into that, especially in the last six weeks or so. We’ve always talked about wanting play our best basketball in February and March. Well, we’re here, and we’ll need to do it if we want to win two more games.”
No. 8 LANGLEY CHRISTIAN 63 No. 1 KING GEORGE 56
LANGLEY — When it comes to dragon slayers, one’s first thought might be of knights, or wizards, or even warriors.
Apparently, lightning is just as effective.
The No. 8 Langley Christian Lightning proved that on Thursday night, as they scored the biggest upset of the entire B.C. Senior Boys Double-A championships on Thursday evening, taking down the top-seeded King George Dragons 63-56 in front of a raucous hometown crowd at the Langley Events Centre.
You could get caught up in the details – the contest featured an all-tournament performance from the Lightning’s Grade 12 guard Willem Van Huizen, in which he scored 12 of his team-high 23 points in the fourth quarter. Or the final five minutes, where the Lightning held the high-flying King George offense to just three points in the game’s most high-stakes moments.
But the bigger picture is something to consider.
“For our program, this is making new history,” explained Ligthning head coach Jon Mayan. “This is our first time we’ve been to the semifinals in program history. We’ve been knocking on the door inn this quarterfinal game for years, it seems. King George themselves knocked us out last year. I’ve been at this a bunch where we were ready to get past this and it just didn’t happen, but this group is the most resilient I’ve had. I’ve loved coaching them. The effort they give is unbelievable, and tonight they just outcompeted a really good King George team.”
The Lightning came out firing early, and gave early warning that the Dragons weren’t going to steamroll their way to the semis again this year. Langley Christian stormed out to a 13-4 lead six minutes in, consistently hitting tough shots over the bigger Dragons. On the defensive end, they attacked the ball relentlessly, forcing King George out of rhythm.
“We heavily scouted them,” recapped Mayan. “We knew how we had to play them from the jump – where there strengths were, especially with their size advantage. We had to double in the post, be very physical, and everyone on our team had to fill their role.”
That strategy held throughout the majority of the contest. A talented Dragons squad was able to pull even on multiple occasions, but the Lightning continued to hold serve. One fourth-quarter sequence saw Van Huizen knock down a deep three, and after the Lightning got a stop on the other end, knocked down a tough finger roll (and the ensuing free throw) to put the Lightning up 58-53 late.
“He’s a phenomenal basketball player,” said Mayan of Van Huizen. “His first love his volleyball – he’s going to TWU next year – but he gives it his everything when he plays. He’s so athletic and so smart, reads the floor incredibly well. He’s just a special athlete, and he hates to lose. He’s as competitive a player as I’ve ever coached.”
From there, it was the defense who rose to the occasion again. The Dragons could not buy an open look as the clock wound down – everywhere they went, the Lightning created havoc. No shot went up uncontested. And a jeering Langley crowd played into that for hometown Lightning.
“Building defensive habits is key to everything we want to do,” said Mayan. “We want to get out in transition, and the only way to do that is to get stops. If anything, our guys needed to understand how tough they needed to be, and how physical they needed to be against a team like that. They took that to heart.”
The Lightning will be underdogs yet again in the semis, as they next take on No. 4-seeded Brentwood College, who took out the Westsyde Whuundas 83-57 in the other quarterfinal matchup Thursday evening.
“We have to play for each other,” said Mayan of his team’s mindset heading into the tourney’s final stretch. “We play for each other and play with purpose. If we can do that, it’ll work out. It did tonight.”
FRIDAY
FINAL FOUR (at Centre Court)
GAME TIMES — 7, 8:45 p.m.
SATURDAY (at Arena Bowl)
CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL — 2:45 p.m.
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