No. 8 YALE 100 No. 9 ST. GEORGE’S 97
By Howard Tsumura
LANGLEY — In a two-point game in which 197 points are scored, you could engage in endless debates about just where a sudden-elimination basketball game is won between the No. 8 and 9 seeds in the opening round of the B.C. senior boys Quad-A basketball championships.
Yet if you had watched all of the ways in which Abbotsford’s No. 8 Yale Lions wound up triumphing in the end over the No. 9 St. George’s Saints of Vancouver on Wednesday evening, then you could put it down to one hoop… one hoop that put the exclamation mark on the one thing the Lions did that the Saints simply no answer for all evening: Keep these Lions ooff of the offensive glass.
And so it was that with 1:07 remaining, that Nylan Roberts, the 6-foot-7 Grade 12 forward, scored the last two of his 26 points.
Roberts was denied on an initial attempt for a lay-in the deep paint, but with an irrepressible elan that is the hallmark of his game, he someone followed the miss with a re-jump that you could interpret as a figurative primal scream, making good on a put-back that was more like a punch-back.
It made the score 98-97 and set the stage for another big play when Roberts fed from the high post off a drive in the paint down to the baseline where guard Jospeh Thoutenhoofd lay-up wrapped up the scoring.
Afterwards, both head coaches led their opening remarks with the same clear point.
“They are really big and physical,” said Saints always-classy head coach Guy da Silva. “The difference was offensive rebounding all game long. And at the end they were able to get a put-back. No. 8 (Nylan Roberts) simply wanted it, simply willed it a little bit more. I thought Yale played hard. They just battled a little bit more.”
After the Lions won the Eastern Valley title two Saturday’s ago at the LEC in convincing fashion over an R.E. Mountain team which gave No. 3 seed West Vancouver all kinds of fits today before bowing out of the title hunt, Yale head coach Euan Roberts was more and more comfortable explaining the super power his team has begun to show on a regular basis over its rise from the shadows to the Final 8.
“If we rebound the ball we’re tough to beat,” said Roberts. “Any team, when they rebound the ball is tough to beat. Over the first part of the game they were killing us on the boards but we picked it up.”
The Nylan Roberts’ basket was the capper to a what turned out to be a high school basketball game’s version of two Norse gods exchanging thunderbolts across the sky. At least down the fourth-quarter stretch.
Taige Roberts, the 6-foot-5 Grade 10 brother of Nylan, and St. George’s 6-foot-5 Grade 11 guard Dorian Glogovac went back and forth with Thor-like three-balls. First Roberts then Glogovac then Roberts then Glogovac then Glogovac again, those five salvos ripping mesh in a span of just 1:38, with the last giving the Saints a 93-92 lead with 3:10 left.
Neither team hit a three the rest of the way, and when the play drifted inside, the Lions were right at home.
Yet the Lions’ versatility was also a sign of their depth as they prepare to play No. 1 seed Oak Bay in Thursday’s 8:45 p.m. quarterfinal. The Bays beat Mt. Baker of Cranbrook 97-48.
Da Silva admitted after the game that his team had no idea that Yale’s 5-foot-9 Grade 11 guard Aaron Adams could be as productive as he was.
“On the film he really didn’t do too much but that guy had a really good game today,” da Silva said of Adams who scored 17 of his 26 points in a game-changing third-quarter. “Sometimes guys step up in these big moments. Often times it’s a guy that is sometimes an unsung hero. He really stepped up and made tons of shots in the second half. We just had too many metal breakdowns and in a game like this you can’t have that many.”
Taige Roberts led the winner with 31 points, and Adams and Nyland Roberts each finished with 26 points.
Glogovac scored a game-high 37 points, Kevin Zhong added 24 and point guard Dominic Aquino 18 in the loss for Saints.
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