LANGLEY — The top four seeds and and six of the top eight are still alive as the B.C. junior boys basketball championship hit Day 2 on Sunday with the quarterfinal round at the Langley Events Centre.
Below we’ve got in-depth game report on all Sweet 16 games, plus opening round scores, and a complete championship draw schedule for Sunday.
GAME REPORTS
SWEET 16 ROUND
TOP HALF DRAW
QUAD A
No. 1 St. Patrick’s 68 No. 16 Handsworth 67 (OT)
LANGLEY — The three-ball reigned supreme in overtime, and when the dust had settled, East Vancouver’s No. 1-seeded St. Patricks Celtics won a game of survival to edge the No. 16 Handsworth Royals of North Vancouver 68-67 and earn a berth in Sunday’s quarterfinals.
“When you live by the three you can die by the three,” said proud Handsworth head coach Mark Barrett, whose valiant Royals rallied from a 15-point second-half deficit (46-30) to tie the game with 1:10 remaining in regulation when Travis MacKay hit one of two free throws.
MacKay then made a key block on a driving St. Pat’s player under his own goal with 13.3 seconds left, however on its ensuing possession, the Royals turned the ball over and the game went to overtime.
Tate Christiansen hit a pair of treys and Elijah King one of his own in the extra frame, but eagle-eyed St. Pat’s was also on the money, getting two triple from Jornel Ursua and a pair of two-point hoops from Joey Panghulan and Irish Coquia to win the game.
“(St. Pat’s) are fast and small and we had to slow their transition and on offence, get the ball inside and I thought early in the game we did a good job of that,” Barrett added. “Our guys will have a good opportunity again in senior. They’re a good team moving forward and we’ll get them in senior.”
Urusa led the Celts with 20 points, Coquia added 18, and both Kaden Carrion and Panghulan added 11 points.
Christiansen led the Royals with a game-high 28 points. MacKay added 12 and King nine.
No. 8 Lambrick Park 52 No. 9 Terry Fox 45
LANGLEY — For Keith Grew, it was a victory which just continued to drive home the point that he’s coaching one of the most special teams of his high school career.
“It was David and Goliath,” Grew said Saturday aftyr his Victoria-based Lambrick Park Lions used a game-ending 13-3 run to turn a close game into a berth in the B.C. quarterfinals following a 52-45 win over PoCo’s Terry Fox Ravens.
“We’re a little school of 600 kids and they are huge,” pointed out Frew. “It was a great win for our school. We’re top eight in the province, and we are so happy to be there.”
The Lions were led by the 17 points of Rio Apt and 10 more from Wyatt Brandsema-Stokes.
Jackson Rous-Smith with 15 points and Graham Stack with 10 led the Ravens.
“These guys have fought so hard all season and we’ve won games we shouldn’t have,” added Grew. “But the effort and the grit they have in them is like no other team I have ever coached.”
The Lions will now face the No. 1-seeded St. Patrick’s Celtics in a 2 p.m. quarterfinal on Sunday.
QUAD B
No. 4 Walnut Grove 78 No. 20 Elgin Park 74
LANGLEY — Kirk Homenick loves the future of the Elgin Park Orcas.
The B.C. junior tournament’s No. 20 seed twice rallied from 15-point deficits against the No. 4-ranked Walnut Grove Gators, twice pulling within a single-point of the Langley powers over the final seconds of play before bowing out of the championship race one win shy of Sunday’s Elite 8 following a 78-74 loss.
“We’re getting close,” said Orcas’ head coach Kirk Homenick, a 1990s-era collegiate post who played in the former Pac 10 with the Southern Cal Trojans. “These guys have been together for a long time, and they believe in each other. We play a fast game, we use a lot of bodies, and we like to get it up and down the floor.”
There were times, however, when it looked like the Terry Stead-coached Gators would win going away.
WGSS, led by the 22 points of Callum Neily, the 16 of Jacob Antchak and the 13 of Nathan Wright, built an early 24-9 lead, and in the second half led 51-36 before the Orcas’ relentless pressure schemes started to pay dividends.
Elgin Park, in fact, tied the game 72-72 with a half-minute left, but were assessed a technical foul which seemed to slow their momentum.
A Cyrus Harrison layin pulled them back within 75-74 with 13 seconds left, bit Wright hit two of four free throws for the Gators to put the game away.
Homenick copped to the uniqueness of a big man installing pressure schemes and making them the identity of the team.
That’s our thing,” he laughed. “It seems a little silly to have a seven footer running a fast, pressing game.
“It’s been 15 years or so since Elgin has made it to the junior B.C.’s,” he added, “and we’ve been playing these Walnut Grove kids since these guys have been in Grade 6. We’ve stil never beaten them, but we’re getting close.”
No. 12 Burnaby South 52 No. 5 Enver Creek 32
LANGLEY — Win two of the last three B.C. junior boys basketball championships, including the one which came last season as part of a perfect 34-0 campaign and you become the team everyone would dearly love to beat.
“The team from last year put a target on our back,” Rebels’ head coach Rupi Dahia admitted Saturday night as Day 1 of the 2020 championships closed out with a late Burnaby South surge which led to an upset 52-32 win over Surrey’s Enver Creek Cougars in the round of Sweet 16.
“We have a lot of work to do, and we know we can’t sleep on anyone… we don’t have that luxury,” Dahia continued, referencing the 2020 junior Rebels as not only Fraser North No. 3, but an unfamiliar No. 12 seed in what began Saturday morning as a 32-team bracket.
On Saturday, after opening with a 55-28 win over No. 21 seed Charles Hays of Prince Rupert, the Rebels spent the greater part of the first three quarters against Enver Creek doing their best to try hold back the No. 5 seeded South Fraser champion Cougars.
It wasn’t until the fourth quarter, however, that its fans saw the kind of Rebels’ basketball which has defined its past two B.C. title runs.
Burnaby South surrendered the first bucket of the quarter to allow Enver Creek to creep within 35-32, but they then proceeded to go on a game-ending 17-0 run to turn a three-point game into a 20-point gallop.
Guards Brady Lau with 18 points and Jaymarc Bowyan with 10 points led the winners while forward Armaan Hehar added nine.
Akash Narayan led Enver Creek with 12 points while Zaydan Azim added nine more.
Now, the Rebels move on to face No. 4 seed Walnut Grove in a 3:30 p.m. quarterfinal on Sunday.
“We wanted the rematch,” said Dahia, of what would be the fifth meeting this season between the two teams.
Walnut Grove has won the first four.
“But they have all been close,” Dahia says. “They’ve had our number so we have to take it to them and hopefully the result will be different. We’ll leave it up to the basketball gods.”
BOTTOM HALF DRAW
QUAD C
No. 2 Sir Winston Churchill 88 No. 18 Holy Cross 58
LANGLEY — Ethan Baron poured home a game-high 38 points, including an impressive 10-of-11 from the charity stripe as No. 2 seed Sir Winston Churchill of Vancouver rolled to an 88-58 win over Surrey’s Holy Cross Crusaders.
Filip Subotic added 12 and Milan John 11 more in the decisive victory, which sends the Bulldogs to an Elite 8 match Sunday here at the Langley Events Centre.
Ilijah Roque scored 20 points in the loss for the Crusaders, the No. 18 seeds, while Ose Ehizode aded 12 more.
No. 7 Vancouver College 64 No. 10 Fleetwood Park 61
LANGLEY — The Vancouver College Fighting Irish picked the perfect time to string together the biggest run of a low-scoring, knock-down, drag-out tussle on Saturday here in the round of Sweet 16 against Surrey’s never-say-die Fleetwood Park Dragons.
In what would eventually end as a 64-61 Vancouver College win, the Irish’s modest 8-0 run was enough to give them what looked like a stranglehold on the scoreboard at 64-54 as the final quarter began to fade.
The Dragons, however, came roaring back with a seven-point run of their own, before the final horn sounded amidst a desperation three-point heave that fell short.
Kiyan Izadkhah, the 6-foot-3, forward, led the winners with 15 points.
Jack Ferguson with 14, Ashton Chu with 12 and Thomas Carvalho with 10 gave the Irish a balanced attack.
Eeser Sarai led the Dragons with Gurmun Ghuman and Gurshan Sran added 14 apiece.
Vancouver College will face high-octane city rival Sir Winston Churchill, the No. 2 seeds, in a 12:30 p.m. battle Sunday in the quarterfinals.
QUAD D
No. 3 Kelowna 69 No. 14 Gladstone 52
LANGLEY — The first-year head coach of the Kelowna Owls JV squad is no stranger to the standard of excellence held within the school’s senior boys basketball program.
“He’s been on me for three years to do this and I finally caved in,” admitted Mitch Goodwin, the former Owls’ point guard great and 2012 grad of program guru and senior boys head coach Harry Parmar, whom Goodwin played for before embarking on his university career with the UBC Okanagan Heat.
On Saturday, while the senior varsity remained in Kelowna preparing for the start of the B.C. Quad-A championships March 4, Goodwin was busy leading the junior Owls to a pair of wins, including a hard-earned 69-52 victory over East Van’s Gladstone Gladiators, which gave his team a berth in Sunday’s B.C. quarterfinals.
“We’ve had Harry come out to practice and just preach the culture he’s been building the past 13 years and guys are buying in,” said Goodwin, who got 23 points from Micah Borne and 22 more from Maxim Storozhuk in the win. “I hope I can stick around a few a few years and just keep building this culture.”
The No. 3 seeded Owls were handed nothing.
“For me the big message is teams are going to come ready to play and we have to be prepared to fight back,” said Goodwin. “Props to Gladstone. They fought the whole way and what I am most proud is our guys stayed calm and executed really well.”
No. 6 Abbotsford 59 No. 11 Centennial 55 (OT)
LANGLEY — The Abbotsford Panthers had what it took to win a battle of attrition.
Leading by 11 points early in the fourth quarter, then trailing 52-51 with 33.2 seconds remaining against Coquitlam’s Centennial Centaurs, the Panthers got some breaks, but also parlayed a solid late stretch of defence into a 59-55 overtime win and a berth against the Kelowna Owls in a Sunday provincial quarterfinal showdown.
“They turned this game on us,” Panthers’ head coach Brent Ciochetti admitted of the late 12-point swing by the Centaurs, one which ultimately turned back in Abby’s favour when Centennial’s 6-foot-8 post KC Ibekwe fouled out in the dying seconds of regulation.
“We went cold from the outside, but then their big guy came out,” added Ciochetti. “He was dominant in this game, so it was nice to be able to go back inside (in overtime). It was a battle.”
Indeed.
Ibekwe finished with 20 points, including a key late lay-up for a 52-51 lead with 33.2 seconds left in regulation.
However Abby’s Dilveer Randhawa was fouled while driving the hoop with 4.4 seconds left, hitting both free throws for a 53-52 lead.
Centennial had a chance to take the lead with a half-second left but went to OT after Nick Yang made one of two free throws.
Yang was excellent in scoring 15 points for the Centaurs.
Jahvon Maksymiw scored 20 for the Panthers, while Randhawa added 18 and Justin Menning 11.
The Panthers will now face Kelowna in an 11 a.m. quarterfinal on Sunday.
Abby played Kelowna twice over season already, losing both games by two points.
Here’s the full opening-round scoreboard:
TOP HALF DRAW
QUAD A
No. 1 St. Patrick’s 69 No. 32 Brookswood 37
No. 16 Handsworth 55 No. 17 Belmont 47
No. 8 Lambrick Park 45 No. 25 Langley Christian 40
No. 9 Terry Fox 61 No. 24 Lord Tweedsmuir 42
QUAD B
No. 4 Walnut Grove 76 No. 29 Valleyview 16
No. 20 Elgin Park 58 No. 13 Oak Bay 52
No. 5 Enver Creek 77 No. 28 Prince George 53
No. 12 Burnaby South 55 No. 21 Charles Hays 28
BOTTOM HALF DRAW
QUAD C
No. 2 Sir Winston Churchill 65 No. 31 Dover Bay 24
No. 18 Holy Cross 71 No. 15 Claremont 63
No. 7 Vancouver College 84 No. 26 Guildford Park 69
No. 10 Fleetwood Park 66 No. 23 Carson Graham 53
QUAD D
No. 3 Kelowna 86 No. 30 R.E. Mountain 38
No. 14 Gladstone 63 No. 19 Dawson Creek 45
No. 6 Abbotsford 71 No. 27 Summerland 39
No. 11 Centennial 48 No. 22 Okanagan Mission 39
SUNDAY
ELITE EIGHT QUARTERFINALS (all at LEC-South Court)
TOP HALF DRAW
QUAD A
2 p.m. — No. 1 St. Patrick’s vs. No. 8 Lambrick Park
QUAD B
3:30 p.m. — No. 4 Walnut Grove vs. No. 12 Burnaby South
BOTTOM HALF DRAW
QUAD C
12:30 p.m. — No. 2 Sir Winston Churchill vs. No. 7 Vancouver College
QUAD D
11 a.m — No. 3 Kelowna vs. No. 6 Abbotsford
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