LANGLEY — A generation ago in B.C. boys high school basketball, the thought of seeing a perfectly in-tune 6-foot-5 Grade 10 point guard would have been a rumour it not an outright lie.
But on Monday, in the semifinals here at the 2025 junior provincial semifinals, a kid named Ilia Maydan was nothing but the truth.
Maydan, whose family arrived in North Vancouver from its home in war-torn Ukraine three years ago, put on the kind of performance that only a regulation box score could truly do justice to.
Yet the 19 points that he scored, along with a healthy dose of dunks and courageous defence were eye-test worthy enough.
When you put it all together it was a big reason why the No. 1-seeded Argyle Pipers were able to hold on for a 62-57 win over the No. 4 Lord Tweedsmuir Panthers of Surrey in a game played at the Langley Event Centre’s sold-out South Court gym.
With Maydan, the three 6-foot-5 Szpak brothers (Nathan, Jayden and Logan) and 6-foot-4 Ethan Mercer, the Pipers seemingly found a way to squeeze some old-growth North Shore Mountains timber into the LEC.
And while so many have taken turns leading this group, Monday’s win had the commanding Maydan’s footprints all over it.
When Lord Tweedsmuir put a 10-0 run on the Pipers to pull within 49-40 after having built their lead to 19 points (49-30) early in the third quarter, it was Maydan dunk that reversed the tide.
Then, with just 1:50 remaining, Maydan he took a charge to halt a Panthers’ fast break, the play’s emotional quotient worth its weight in gold as the Pipers hunkered down to weather the storm behind a 53-43 lead.
“It was three years ago in next couple of weeks when the war started, and he was in Grade 8 and I got a random Instagram message saying ‘We have come to the country, could we meet? We need somewhere to play basketball,’” related Argyle head coach Jamie Oei after the game of his first contact with the Maydan family. “A random thing. I met the twins, Ilia and his sister Maria, and the rest is kind of history.”
Indeed Mariia Maydan is a member of the B.C. Quad-A No. 1-ranked Argyle team which opens Wednesday at the 75th B.C. senior girls championships right here at the LEC.
Right from the start, as soon as Oei witnessed the athleticism and coordination within, he thought about his new student-athlete’s future path and was immediately triggered by a memory from the 2009 B.C. top-tiered Triple-A championships at the PNE Agrodome.
“It’s kind of interesting because I remember watching South Kamloops when Kelly Olynyk was there and his dad Ken was coaching him,” Oei began of the current New Orleans Pelicans forward who was a first-round pick and has played for a number of teams including the Boston Celtics and later played for the Toronto Raptors. “So here was this 6-foot-11 guy being the point guard, and everyone is going ‘What’s his dad doing?’ He was preparing him for the next level to be able to play different positions.
“So as soon as Ilia came to this country, I met him and I said what a talent he is,” continued Oei, himself a North Vancouver native who starred at guard during his prep days at Windsor. “I said that I am not going to stick him on the block and be a post player. He is going to develop and have the ball in his hands and be a leader and that’s what he’s become.”
Helping the Pipers get to Tuesday’s championship game, where it will face the No. 2 seed St. Patrick’s Celtics of East Vancouver in a 7 p.m. tip was not lost on Maydan.
“It was a big moment, we played really well as a team,” Maydan began. “We were just prepared to win and we were locked in.”
His journey has been soul-testing on so many levels.
Yet the tenor of his voice is laced with an undeniable resilience to endure, and it’s especially evident when he’s asked if he is growing into the kind of athlete and teammate he had originally envisioned before being forced to find a new life with his family in Canada.
“Of course, yeah I was working on my game and having practices every day and I knew I was going to be this kind of player,” he said. “I am working my skills to develop my game and trying to be a guard.”
And with that length, combined with that of so many other key members of the Pipers rotation has made Argyle a beast throughout the first three days of the championships.
Nonetheless, even Oei had to admit that the unflappable Panthers made life miserable for his team for the full 32 minutes.
“They have three very, very, very talented players,” he said of guards Gurtaj Hayer (game-high 20 points), Jaideep Athwal (10 points) and Maahir Fulka (five points), so we tried to keep it out of their hands as much as possible, double team, and then use our length and make other guys beat us… and we still almost couldn’t do that.”
Oei, however, with one sleep to go before Tuesday’s final, felt there was plenty to learn from a late lapse that saw Tweedsmuir pull within seven at 55-48.
“It’s great what happened to us at the end because we kind of panicked a little bit,” the coach said.
“We played three-and-a-half great quarters, then the press came, which is exactly the way St. Pats and Terry Fox play you,” Oei said just prior to the Celtics-Ravens semifinal of which his team was to play the winner. “So it was good for us to go ‘Hey, we lost our composure. Luckily we played well enough to get to the final.”
Logan Szpak had 13 points for the winners while Nathan Szpak had nine and Mercer eight.
“They were too big for us,” said LT head coach Raj Bagry. “But I’m proud of our team. We loved, loved, loved being here.”
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