LANGLEY — Shemaiah Abatayo, like the rest of Canada’s hard-luck Class of 2020 university freshmen recruits, will get a second chance to make a rookie impression when U Sports basketball courts flash their figurative green lights this coming fall.Nothing could have beaten the on-court experience that a 2020-21 Canada West season would have provided Abatayo […]
High School Girls Basketball
Jayden White: Special signs along the way speak the truth of compassion, tenacity Yale Lions forward carries to Alberta Pandas!
ABBOTSFORD — Ask Jayden White what it means for her to have walked the walk through a star-crossed high school basketball career, and she’ll show you this photo of the inside of a Gatorade bottle cap containing the bone chips surgeons extricated from her knee back in 10th grade.“The biggest one is the size of […]
Adversity’s award: Why the Tessa Beauchamp Scholarships mean so much more to B.C. high school’s courageous Class of 2021!
SURREY — For almost a decade, it has distinguished itself as a memorial scholarship by asking its many Grade 12 student applicants to ponder a question so deeply understood by its namesake.And when you very fittingly digest that same question these days, over the final weeks of the most challenging of school years, it’s hard […]
Post-marked UFV: How GWG Grizzlies’ Grade 11 post Julia Tuchscherer will pivot into the paint with U Sports’ Cascades next season!
ABBOTSFORD — For about as long as Julia Tuchscherer can remember, she’s had a knack for making all of the numbers add up.She’s even done it in these challenging times, heading down the home stretch of her Grade 11 year at Chilliwack’s G.W. Graham Secondary with a 4.0 grade point average within a core of […]
Tsumura Basketball Invitational: Churchill, Seaquam, SMUS join girls draw as boys, girls 40-team field now official for December 2021!
LANGLEY — We are thrilled with the 40 teams who have now finalized their participation in this coming December’s 2021 boys and girls Tsumura Basketball Invitationals at the Langley Events Centre.(The full list of finalized teams is included at the bottom of this story)Yet what has us even more excited is the response we have […]
The Luyken Legacy: For UFV’s father-daughter duo of Anthony & Aieisha, building community through basketball is a lifelong calling!
ABBOTSFORD — Anthony and Aieisha Luyken are a father and daughter with a most special tie to the sport of basketball.Today, Varsity Letters is happy to help share, through the efforts of one of our founding partners, the Fraser Valley Cascades, the story of their incredible, life-defining love affair with the sport and its impact […]
Sage Stobbart: Seycove’s former B.C. AA MVP turns her shot-blocking/three-point shooting skills into a sweet science with D1 UC Davis Aggies!
As an environmental sciences major at UC Davis, Sage Stobbart is gaining an ecological understanding that makes her feel more at home than ever in the great outdoors.Yet ask the redshirt junior forward about the other side of her life as a student-athlete, that of the agile and versatile 6-foot-3 junior forward with the Aggies’ […]
15 Players to Watch in 2021-22: Meet Quad’s A’s blue-chip stars, a crop of (mostly) well-seasoned rising seniors with the itch to play!
LANGLEY — Today, we wrap up a week of looking ahead to next season with 15 B.C. Quad-A senior girls basketball players to watch for the 2021-22 season.The list was prepared by the B.C. Secondary Schools Girls Basketball Association. Varsity Letters did not take part in the player selection.QUAD AKIERRA BLUNDELLKIERRA BLUNDELLSchool: Brookswood (Langley)In 2021-22: […]
15 Players to Watch in 2021-22: B.C. girls Triple-A basketball has its greatest strengths centred around its Class of 2023 and beyond!
LANGLEY — From an organic standpoint, it’s B.C. high school girls basketball’s most unique tier. Very quickly, however, it’s beginning to gain its own identity.With the recent switch to a four-tiered province, the former top tier — AAA — has become a melting pot of sorts, a new home with both holdover programs and those […]
15 players to watch in 2021-22: B.C. girls basketball Double-A ranks filled with a class of rising senior talent
LANGLEY — Based on the tier’s senior Class of 2020, a group filled with as much dynamic talent as we’ve perhaps ever seen, the Double-A girls Class of 2o22 has a lot to live up to.Yet consider all of the senior varsity experience they have already accumulated and the betting money says they won’t disappoint.Day […]