PORT MOODY — The proliferation of, and reliance on the three-point shot is certainly the grand separator when today’s game is contrasted against a generation past.
And yes, we get it, that’s no news flash.
Yet while so much has changed from even those turn-of-the-century days when the NBA still called this city home, there are still reminders that the players who really want to be players still bang on school gymnasium doors in early hours of their weekday mornings.
That’s something St. Patricks Celtics head coach Nap Santos was only too happy to point out this past Saturday night after his team topped Surrey’s Semiahmoo Totems 74-67 in the fifth-place game at the Heritage Woods Kodiak Classic invitational.
“They put in their work,” Santos began of his Celtics and their prodigious ethic to become more and more automatic from beyond the three-point arc. “All summer long they were doing that. It was 500 makes a day.
“And now, Riley is there at our gym at six in the morning before school starts, putting in the time,” he continued of the team’s Grade 11 leader Riley Santa Juana. “I have given them the green light because they put in their time.”
Clearly the Celtics — who open play Wednesday (11:45 a.m.) against Surrey’s Sullivan Heights Stars as the Tsumura Basketball Invitational opens a four-day run at the Langley Events Centre — aren’t the only team with such a mindset.
Yet for a provincial title-contending Triple-A No. 2-ranked St. Pat’s team just one season removed from back-to-back B.C. title wins, and this season lacking the kind of singular scoring force that 2023 alumnus and current SFU Red Leaf starter Irish Coquia represented, their desire to become knockdown steady from deep is perhaps a little bit more pronounced than your average team.
And so on Saturday against a skilled Semiahmoo team with a distinct size advantage, it didn’t hurt St. Patrick’s cause that they brought their ‘A’ shooting game, one which included 16 triples made on the evening.
Compact 5-foot-8 guard Arkin Solis, a newcomer to the starting lineup as a senior, hit all five of his team-high triple in the opening half en route to a 17-point evening.
Santa Juana stroked home four treys as part of his 15-point, 12-assist effort.
The team’s tallest player, 6-foot-4 senior forward Jakobi Metalabos, added three more triples en route to team-highs 19 points and 10 rebounds.
CJ Bukid and Jaiden Quan, a pair of Grade 11s, each scored six points by hitting two three-pointers apiece.
Grade 11 forward Heracles Mai didn’t hit a three, but added 11 points the old-fashioned way.
With their vertical challenges, St. Pat’s is becoming accustomed to earning better looks in the paint by first establishing its outside shooting.
“I know that we can shoot threes so we are trying to establish outside (first) and then you saw a couple of times we looked inside,” confirmed Santos. “For a team that is small, we’re looking to shoot, and once in a while we’ll get that inside look.”
Dimitri Pomonis with 19 points, Jack Snead with 15 and Armaan Dulay with 12 led the Thunderbirds.
St. Pat’s opened up play at the Kodiak Classic by beating North Vancouver’s Handsworth Royals 89-80 before losing to eventual tourney champ Dover Bay Dolphins of Nanaimo 96-82.
On Friday, the Celtics rallied with an 89-75 win over Surrey’s Holy Cross Crusaders.
The Tsumura Basketball Invitational (Dec. 4-7), featuring two 16-team draws, including Friday semifinals in the Super 16 draw tipping off at 6:15 and 7:45 p.m. The Select 16 semifinals will tip off at 3 and 4:45 p.m. All four games will be contested consecutively in the South Court facility.
Championship games will be played Saturday at 3 p.m. (Select 16) and 4:45 p.m. (Super 16) in the Centre Court facility.
Games will run all four days at the Langley Events Centre.
Check out the full draws at VarsityLetters.ca
Keep checking back this week for more high school basketball news’s we feature both the Dover Bay Dolphins and Vancouver College Fighting Irish, each set to open Wednesday as part of TBI’s talented 32-team boys teams!
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As always, great writing Howard. A St. Pat’s 3 point connection with Semi is Dimitri Pomonis who is likely the son of a great point guard with the Celtics in the early nineties and who went on to a pro career in Greece. At one point he set the European record for most 3 pointers.