(Updated at 3:10 p.m.)
(A note from Howard Tsumura: Welcome to Day 1 at the 2026 B.C. junior boys basketball championships. We’ll update this story later tonight with the full package of scores from the opening two rounds of the 56th annual gathering.)
LANGLEY — Welcome to the most gruelling opening day of B.C. high school basketball’s championship season, AKA the B.C. Junior Boys Basketball Invitational Tournament.
Don’t let the name fool you. It’s for all of the marbles.
And when the 56th annual edition opened its four-day run at a sleepy-eyed 8:30 a.m. Saturday at the Langley Events Centre, even the most experienced of boys coaches were quick to admit that slicing a 32-team championship field down to eight with two sudden-elimination rounds on the same day is an experience unlike anything else on the provincial hoops tournament calendar.
Never mind the fact that longtime tournament director Jyoti Pawar was in sick bay a half-hour into the event, turning his ankle severely enough that first aid was being ably administered in one of the side rooms at the LEC’s South Court complex.
Pawar’s pain might be commensurate with the level of mental anguish many coaches secretly harbour when after a season of preparation, best-laid plans can be so suddenly put to rest in a single 32-minute game.
In its first game of the day, the No. 4-seeded Brookswood Bobcats of Langley were in the process of putting the finishing touches on a 68-42 win over the No. 29-seeded Norkam Saints of Kamloops.
The Saints battled throughout, and despite their lead, Bobcats head coach Randy Nohr, the former national team point guard decorated with titles at every stop along the way from Aldergrove High, to Langara College to St. FX, was not letting the work ethic of any possession dip below acceptable norms.
Afterwards, a coach like Nohr, who has seen virtually every pressure situation the game can bring on the local, national and international stage, smiled wide when asked specifically why the junior B.C.’s are a different animal within the coaching fraternity.
“It’s the joke that all of us junior boys coaches have,” said Nohr, whose son Mason is the team’s Grade 9 starter at point guard. “Consistency is not one of the strengths of junior boys basketball. And it’s the one thing that keeps the coaches up at night.”
Interestingly enough, the tourney seeding committee has done an incredible job in matchmaking the massive draw over the last number of seasons.
In fact in some years, the seedings have held over the morning’s entire 16-team opening elimination round.
But every coach worth his salt will tell you that when you’re dealing with largely 15- and 16-year-old high schoolers, any moment could be the moment of on-court implosion.
“We’ve had a really good season, but there are some awesome junior teams coming down the pipe,” said Nohr, whose ‘Cats were scheduled to face Courtenay’s Mark Isfeld Ice in a 5:30 p.m. round of 16 game. “Like, I think there’s like 20 teams in this tournament that all can beat anybody on any given day.
That’s the cue to bring up the Bobcats’ crosstown Langley rivals, the R.E. Mountain Eagles.
In as a host and seeded No. 21, the Eagles dug themselves out of a 16-1 game-opening hole off the against West Kelowna’s No. 12-seeded Rutland Thunder, the Thompson-Okanagan champs.
Yet somehow head coach Kirk Weiss’ squad never blinked.
Instead, they plumbed the deepest reaches of their collective competitive gut and came back to win the thing 64-55.
“I think our starters, you know, were a little bit intimidated by the moment, being a host team so maybe a little bit of doubt in themselves, but credit to our guys who showed tons of grit, did not give up,” said Weiss, whose team last season also got in as a host, was given the No. 23 seed and promptly upset another Okanagan champion in Kamloops’ Sa-Hali Sabres.
And what an opening round it was for Langley-area teams Saturday morning.
Not only did Mountain and Brookswood both win, but so too, did the Walnut Grove Gators.
The built-in toughness that comes from playing the likes of each other, as well as the always-tough MEI Eagles is sure looking like the perfect mettle-testing formula for success.
“So we always say anyone can win on any given night at the junior level, especially,” continued Weiss. “Some kids are new to the game, just learning it. Others haven’t haven’t, uh, learned to deal with pressure. deal with the moment, you know, so that’s that’s kind of the joy of coaching this age… seeing them mature into those composed seniors who are under control out there.”
And you don’t have to look too hard in each game here this week to know what Weiss calls that so-called “…joy of coaching this age.”
Scoreless over his first half, one of Brookswood’s Grade 10 guards came out in the second half and promptly nailed a trio of triples.
“We had one of our bench guys come in, Maddox Painter, and he gave us a great spark, got us going you know what?” said Nohr. “We had a much better second half. That first half is difficult because I think naturally players relax a little bit. So hopefully we’re done with that and we’ll be more focussed for our next game.”
If there is one program among the top seeds here this season that is as familiar with the inconsistency of athletes in their mid-teens, it’s the Burnaby South Rebels, who have won three junior provincial titles and played in five finals since 2009.
”I think the ebbs and the flows, the highs and the lows are part of the season for every team at the junior level,” summed Rebels’ head coach Cody Cormack following his No. 2-seeded team’s 82-35 win over No. 31 College Heights of Prince George. “And you just got to hope that your preparation leads to it being more highs than lows during the provincial tournament.”
All tolled, the opening round produced three games out of 16 in which the lower seeded team defeated the higher seed.
In addition to Mountain, upset winners included No 17 Duchess Park of Prince George beating No. 16 Lambrick Park of Victoria 67-49 in the closest seeded game of the draw, and in a shocker if you go by seeding number, No. 22 Seaquam of North Delta topped No. 11 New Westminster 67-59.
TODAY
Vancouver College 82 LV Rogers 59
Duchess Park 67 Lambrick Park 49
Walnut Grove 73 Guildford Park 63
Fleetwood Park 62 Belmont 52
Brookswood 68 Norkam 42
Mark Isfeld 72 Grandview Heights 61
Heritage Woods 52 Eric Hamber 27
RE Mountain 64 Rutland 55
Burnaby South 82 College Heights 35
Abbotsford 57 Windsor 53
Brentwood College 57 Penticton 45
Lord Tweedsmuir 49 Nanaimo District 49
Holy Cross 77 Charles Hays 50
Terry Fox 67 Okanagan Mission 48
Van Tech 73 Quw’utsun 49
Seaquam 67 New Westminster 59
The schedule for Sweet 16 games:
Top half draw
Quad A (4 p.m.)
No. 1 Vancouver College vs. No. 17 Duchess Park
No. 8 Walnut Grove vs NO. 9 Fleetwood Park
QUAD B (5:30 p.m.)
No 4 Brookswood vs. No. 13 Mark Isfeld
No 5 Heritage Woods vs. No. 21 RE Mountain
BOTTOM HALF DRAW
QUAD C (7 p.m.)
No 2 Burnaby South vs. No. 15 Abbotsford
No 7 Brentwood College vs. No 10 Lord Tweedsmuir
QUAD D (8:30 p.m.)
No 3 Holy Cross vs. No 14 Terry Fox
No 6 Van Technical vs. No 22 Seaquam
Sundays’s Quaterfinals
11:30 a.m.
Quad A winners (South Court)
Quad B winners (Centre Court)
1 p.m.
Quad C winners South Court)
Quad D winners (Centre Court)
As mentioned, check back later tonight as we update all the scores from Day 1 in Langley and set you up for Sunday’s 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. quarterfinals.
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