St. Patrick's Jericho Labrador gets the edge inside on Terry Fox's Diego Castro during Final Four action from the 2025 B.C. Junior Boys Basketball Championships, Monday, Feb. 24 at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Ryan Molag property of Langley Events Centre 2025. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

For St. Pat’s stars Labrador, Cotin senior service helps junior Celts outlast Fox, earn spot in BC JV title tilt!

LANGLEY — Five Final Fours in the past six years, and now a chance to win its second provincial title over that span.St. Patricks are indeed a program in every sense of the word, and on Tuesday here at the 55th annual B.C. Junior Boys semifinals, the Celtics outlasted PoCo’s Terry Fox Ravens 68-62 behind […]

Panagiotis Samaris of Burnaby South gets an up-close view of the wingspan of Argyle's Logan Szpak during quarterfinal play at the 2025 B.C. junior boys basketball championships Feb. 23 at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2025. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

No. 1 Argyle tops Burnaby South! Now, after a near half-century between BC junior boys Final Fours, Pipers ready to play!

Every great team has its kryptonite.On Sunday, however, North Vancouver’s Argyle Pipers seemed to lace their figurative capes just that extra little bit tighter.And after a 72-57 win over a No. 8-seeded Burnaby South Rebels team that Pipers head coach Jamie Oei respectfully labels as its chief nemesis, the No. 1-seeded Pipers are headed to […]

Lord Tweedsmuir's Jaideep Athwal soars over Vancouver College duo of Ten Hetherington (0) and Marko Maric during quarterfinal play at the 2025 B.C. junior boys basketball championships Feb. 23 at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2025. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

With its dynamic shooting and driving, and relentless defence, Lord Tweedy’s Panthers top VC Irish for BC JV Final 4 berth!

LANGLEY — The offence of the South Fraser champion Lord Tweedsmuir Panthers has been eye-popping this week here at the 2025 B.C. junior boys basketball championships.And when you ascend to that place where both shooting the three and attacking with gusto form a perfect duo of unpredictability, you arrive at a place where threats imagined […]

Terry Fox Ravens (left to right) Santiago Castro, Diego Castro and Joel Pelland played a hard-nosed brand of defence that helped the Poco squad past Surrey's Sullivan Heights Stars and into Monday's Final 4 at the 2025 B.C. Junior Boys Basketball championships Sunday at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Garrett James property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2025. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

Terry Fox gets ravenous on defence… No. 3 Ravens’ no-name mentality fuels win over Sullivan and BC JV Final 4 berth!

LANGLEY — Take a quick glance at the main rotation in the back court of the Final Four-bound Terry Fox Ravens here at the 2025 B.C. junior boys basketball championships in Langley, and all the while tell yourself that looks can be deceiving.It’s guys like Diego Castro. Robi Felipe. Santiago Castro. Ricky Adam.They don’t exactly […]

St. Patrick's Dhyne Cotin tries to elude the long reach of New Westminster's Djorde Komar in the quarterfinals of the 2025 B.C. Junior Boys Basketball championships played Sunday at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Garrett James property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2025. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

No. 2 St. Pats earns BC junior Final 4 berth as patient game plan enough to hold off No. 7 New West Hyacks

LANGLEY — Basketball purists love to wax on about our beautiful game, and tell the stories about how it’s one of the last places where no opposition advantage is ever too great for a little ingenuity and a self-belief to overcome.Yet when the team in question turns out to be the too often times vertically-challenged […]

Salish Wolves' guard Wyatt Schweizer finds the going tough against Vancouver College during Sweet 16 round action at the 2025 B.C. junior boys basketball championships on Saturday at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letter 2025. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

B.C. Junior Boys Saturday Sweet 16! Game reports as 32-team pool whittled down to it’s Great 8!

LANGLEY — Welcome to the second half of what has been one of the most parity-filled opening rounds in the recent history of the B.C. junior boys basketball championships here at the Langley Events Centre. Seeds Nos. 1-5, along with Nos. 7 and 8 managers to survive the first round, but you may notice from […]

Thor Sturgeon of the Similkameen Spartks battles the No. 1-ranked Argyle Pipers for a rebound Saturday during the opening round of the 55th annual B.C. junior boys basketball championships at the Langley Events Centre. Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letter 2025. All Rights Reserved)Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letter 2025. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

B.C. Junior Boys Hoops! Opening round updates from Day 1 of the 55th annual championships at the LEC!

BY HOWARD TSUMURAVarsity LettersLANGLEY — We now have complete details from the opening round of the B.C. junior boys basketball championships currently in progress at the Langley Events Centre.Before we get to today’s 16 opening-round contests, here’s tonight’s quarterfinals (note first games start at 4 p.m. as per Group 2)TOP HALF DRAWGROUP 15:30 p.m. — […]

The LEC officially kicks off high school basketball championship season the B.C. junior boys tournament opens a four-day run Saturday. The B.C. senior girls tournament follows beginning Wednesday. (Photo property Varsity Letters 2025. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball High School Girls Basketball

B.C. tourney time! Your schedules for B.C. junior boys, B.C. senior girls at the LEC!

By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caLANGLEY — It’s eight straight days of B.C. high school basketball championship action beginning Saturday morning at the Langley Events Centre, and we’ve got the provincial tournament draws for all five events right here!~First, the B.C. Junior Boys 32-team championship draw gets underway Saturday through Tuesday.Here’s the complete tournament draw:2025JrBoysDrawThat will be followed […]

St. George's Roman Simmons (left) tries to keep Heritage Woods' Afu Bullock under wraps during Game 1 of the TBI Super 16 bracket Dec. 4, 2024 at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Howard Tsumura exclusive property of VarsityLetters.ca 2024. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

B.C. boys hoop ranks 02.19.25 edition: Quad-A Top 10 predicts tight Island, VSS and S. Fraser zone finals!

LANGLEY — There’s four zones represented in the Top 10 of the B.C. Quad-A rankings released Wednesday, and if their order counts for anything, it should guarantee three excellent zone championships on Vancouver Island, within the Vancouver Sea-to-Sky and in the South Fraser.Kelowna from the Thompson-Okanagan remains the lone outlier in the Top 10.Oak Bay, […]

After a torn PCL and a fractured left foot hampered her freshman year, UBC's Mona Berlitz has been in attack mode for the Thunderbirds. (Photo by Jacob Mallari property of UBC athletics 2025. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

A little left, a little right… OK, perfect! UBC’s Mona Berlitz finds her true basketball centre in the presence of team! Her journey from Germany to Vancouver now pointed at run to Final 8 national spoils!

VANCOUVER — When it comes to conversing, German is always going to be her native language.Yet there’s two others that UBC Thunderbirds’ 6-foot third-year forward Mona Berlitz seems to be able to speak with equal fluency.One is the English language and the other is the language of basketball.Put them all together and nothing gets lost […]