BURNABY — The Chancellor Invitational may or may not have a B.C. Triple A No. 1 vs. No. 2 senior boys championship final on Saturday night.
What is known, however, is that it’s going to be a great game regardless of who gets there.
Dance cards were punched to Friday’s Final Four on Thursday, and the No. 1 North Delta Huskies and No. 2 Sir Charles Tupper Tigers of Vancouver each advanced.
But so too did the former Triple A No. 1 Byrne Creek Bulldogs of Victoria, currently at No. 6, and the unranked Quad A West Vancouver Highlanders, who aren’t as much of a stranger to these proceedings than you might think.
Games go all day Friday at STM, leading too the evening’s two semifinal clashes.
North Delta dances with Byrne Creek at 7 p.m., while Tupper tackles West Vancouver at 8:45 p.m.
Here’s our look at all four quarterfinals from Thursday:
TOP SIDE DRAW
No. 1 NORTH DELTA 63 ST. THOMAS MORE 47
Suraj Gahir might have struggled mightily from the free throw line, but even when he’s not at his best, he’s still good for a few dozen.
North Delta’s uber hero managed to do just that against a pesky, host Knights team, scoring a game-high 24 points as the Huskies opened the game on a 12-0 run, then saw the Knights play them almost even the rest of the way.
Jag Johal and Arun Atker scored 14 apiece for the winners, while Ryan Cabico added eight points.
Gabe Narcio led STM with 20 points.
No. 6 BYRNE CREEK 71 No. 10 RICK HANSEN 70
Gurkaran Mangat and Jaydan Bains took turns priming the Hurricanes for an upset, but in the end, a pair of free throws by Hajrubbin Dzebic in the dying stages of play proved to be the difference as Byrne Creek squeaked by Abbotsford’s Rick Hansen.
Mangat scored 18 of his team-high 23 in the first half, while Bains scored 15 of his 16 in the second as the ‘Canes and Dawgs battled through 65-65 and 68-68 draws late.
Byrne Creek point guard Sufi Ahmed scored 20 of his game-high 30 points in the first half, while teammate Bithow Wan added another 26 points in the win.
Harjot Dhaliwal hit five treys and finished with 15 points while Monty Gill added 13.
Last season, the same two teams met in the Chancellor semifinals with then-No. 1 Byrne beating then-No. 5 North Delta 75-55 en route to the championship title the following day over the Argyle Pipers.
BOTTOM SIDE DRAW
No. 2 SIR CHARLES TUPPER 76 FLEETWOOD PARK 63
The Tigers have finally got senior starting point guard Gaurab Acharya back in the lineup, and teamed with fellow senior guard Norben Bulosan gives East Van’s powerhouse their full complement of powers.
Bulosan hit three triples and finished with 12 points while Acharya also hit three treys and finished with 11 points as Tupper topped the tough Quad A Fleetwood Park Dragons of Surrey by 13.
Jovan Dhillon led the winners with 17 points, Mitchell Morgan added eight, and Lloyd Macinas and Simon Crossfield scored seven apiece.
Rav Randhawa led the Dragons with a game-high 28 points, going 12-of-13 from the charity stripe.
Amrit Bassi added 12 points, going 7-of-8 from the free throw line.
WEST VANCOUVER 62 No. 5 DUCHESS PARK 53
Back in March of 2017, West Vancouver’s Highlanders were a Final Four team at the B.C. junior boys championships, part of a quartet that also included the champion Burnaby South Rebels, silver medalist Tupper Tigers and bronze medalist North Delta Huskies.
Now in their senior seasons as a Quad A team, the promise of that JV season has begun to reveal itself.
Parsa Zadeh and Marcus Dunn each scored 18 points, and Callum Dye added 11 more as the Highlanders topped Prince George’s Condors.
Caleb Lyons scored a game-high 21 points in the loss for Duchess. Dan Zimmerman added 13 and Soren Erricson nine more.
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