No. 2 SPECTRUM 89 No. 15 PRINCE GEORGE 56
By Howard Tsumura
LANGLEY — If you asked the members of the Spectrum Thunder what one thing they would want to most clean up with regards to their game here at the 78th annual B.C. senior boys Quad-A basketball championship, it’s setting the temp off the opening tip.
In a tourney were legends are made with those upset victories in the opening round, the No. 2 seeded Thunder’s opening round foes, the No. 15 Prince George Polars, showed early they might be cut from the same kind of Cinderella cloth.
Yet the Polars’ 18-16 first quarter lead proved not to be a sign of things to come.
Instead it was more a time for a young Thunder team to come to grips with the mass of its Arena Bowl surroundings, then burn of the anxiety before truly coming into their own en route to an 89-56 victory as it made its first appearance at provincials since 1999.
“We’ve been slow to start first quarters, I don’t know what it is with these guys and it’s a bit frustrating,” said Spectrum had coach Tyler Verde, whose team has been so good the entire season that it’s easy to forget that it hadn’t been here since 1999. “It’s the first time being here in Arena Bowl and then Justin picks up two quick, quick, fouls,” he continued. “So (in-between quarters) we went ‘OK, here we go, you can’t take anybody lightly,’”
Verde’s point was taken.
The Thunder opened the second quarter on a 14-2 run and never looked back, the dynamic Grade 11 duo of 6-foot-8 Tyler Felt and 6-foot-4 Justin Hinrichsen eventually doing what they do best.
Inside and out, the pair got into the flow, Hinrichsen leading a balanced attack with 15 points and Felt adding another 10. Guards Gio de Gracia and C.J. Zuno each added 12 points.
The Thunder will now advance to the quarterfinals on Thursday (3:30 p.m.) when they gave the winner of No. 7 Burnaby South and No. 10 Lord Tweedsmuir.
The Polars have enough talent to get something done on the consolation side of the draw.
Led by the outstanding play of Grade 11, 6-foot-4 forward Jules Tersago (13 points) and 6-foot senior guard Kavan Varaich (11 points), the combination of Prince George’s loose, nothing-to-lose feel in the first quarter combined with Spectrum’s jitters showed a Polars team at it’s best.
Prince George head coach Joe Luong, with full respect to Spectrum, admitted that trying to get ready for the tourney as a lower seeded team was tough.
“Our last trip, when we were playing our best basketball, was snowed out, so we never got to compete,” said Luong of what all teams in the North Central are forced to overcome. “We had maybe 40 games this season and we had to travel almost every weekend.
“They are playing a big pressure games and we don’t get a lot of those up north, so we start making mental mistakes,” he said. “But Spectrum is very talented and they just wear you down and we start making more and more turnovers. They’re ranked No. 2 for a reason.”
Interestingly enough, the two head coaches not only grew up playing high school hoops even further up north in Prince Rupert, they are friends who happened to grow up across the street from each other.
“I was at PRSS (Prince Rupert Senior Secondary) and he was at Charles Hays, and I was in the last grad class (2010) before they discontinued,” said Verde. “So he was a Hurricane (Class of 2011) and I was a Rainmaker, but we lived across the street from each other, played together on regional teams and have been friends for a long time.”
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