BY GARY KINGSTON (Special for Varsity Letters)
LANGLEY – Seeded No. 3 and deadly with the three.
The Collingwood Cavaliers rode a red-hot afternoon from behind the arc to a 71-64 win over No. 4 seed Brentwood College in the Double A final at the B.C. senior boys high school championships at the Langley Events Centre.
It was the West Vancouver school’s first title since 2016.
“You got to give them credit,” said Brentwood head coach Blake Gage. “They shot 56 percent from three. Some of them a little too open, but a lot of them tough (contested shots). And we shot just 25 per cent.”
The Cavaliers converted on 13 of 23 from long range with leading scorers Cy Bosa (22 points) and Finnegan Murphy (20 points), combining for 11 treys on 17 shots.
“It’s been on all season,” said Murphy of the sizzling shooting from distance. “We just let it fly. We’ve got so much confidence on this team.”
It was a see-saw game throughout with neither team able to pull away until a 9-4 run by Collingwood in the fourth quarter, highlighted by threes from Murphy and Bosa, gave the Cavs a 68-56 lead. Brentwood fought back with a 6-0 run of its own, but Murphy’s tough basket on the inside with 50 seconds left was a clincher.
The Cavs also played smothering defence late and got a key block from 6-foot-8 Avi Barha, one of his four on the game, matching the total of teammate Logan Albiani.
“Our bigs, Logan had great blocks, Avi came at the end there with great blocks, that made a huge difference,” said assistant coach Teresa Ross.
She said there was a feeling from the opening practice of the season that the talent was there for a long run.
“We knew we had really cool athletes and we were going to be able to do some different stuff with them. We knew we had it in us.”
Dynamic guard Amir Mojarradi got a bit sloppy with the ball at times (eight turnovers), but chipped in with 10 points, nine rebounds and four assists.
Brentwood got 16 points from Milan Pasquale and 15 from Julian Bishop.
“I thought we did a lot of really good things,” said Gage. “We probably weren’t as confident as I’d like us to be. We got some pretty good looks, open guys around the basket.
“I’m really proud of the effort they gave. Just didn’t quite have the experience to be in the moment. But we’ve got a lot of Grade 11s coming back. It’s a good group. If they want it, they could be quite good.”
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