LANGLEY — Welcome to Day 1 of the 2020 B.C. senior girls Quad-A championships.
Please check back on this posting throughout the day as we continue to update the eight sudden-elimination games on tap.
TOP HALF DRAW
NO. 1 LANGLEY CHRISTIAN 101 NO. 9 NOTRE DAME 45
LANGLEY — It’s the process that matters most to the Langley Christian Lightning.
That’s why it barely registers to head coach Danielle Gardner when you bring up the fact that her No. 1 seed has now broken 100 points two days in a row with the Final Four next.
“I think we’re just trying to play the way we can,” said Gardner whose team topped Vancouver’s Notre Dame Jugglers 101-45 to earn a berth against the York House Tigers in a 1:30 p.m. provincial semifinal on Friday.
“It’s not even realizing what the score is,” added Gardner, whose team beat Creston’s Prince Charles Comets 112-22 on Wednesday. “We’re just trying to play the way we can, to do what we do and execute. We’re working hard and right now that is all I can ask.”
Lainey Shelvey lived up to all of that, 5-foot-8 Grade 10 guard going 11-of-14 from the field and scoring a game-high 27 points for the win.
Sydney Bradshaw (17), Ava Krepp (15), Makenna Gardner (13), and Kathryn New (12) all reached double figures on offence in a game the Lightning used an 18-1 second-quarter run to make their own.
Maezell Del Mundo scored 17 points to lead the Jugglers.
NO. 5 YORK HOUSE 72 NO. 13 SEYCOVE 47
LANGLEY — The York House Tigers may be back here at the B.C. Double A championships since many of the current team were still in elementary school.
Yet none of that has stopped the Tigers from weaving themselves right into the plotline of the 2020 championships which hit Day 2 on Thursday at the Langley Event Centre’s Fieldhouse court.
Senior forward Akash Grewal scored a game-high 23 points,. Grade 11 guard Nadeen Wu added 19, and Grade 10 forward Finley Butler added 10 more as York House wore down North Vancouver’s Seycove Seyhawks over the second half en route to a 72-47 win and a berth in Friday’s 1:30 p.m. semifinal against the No. 1 seed Langley Christian Lightning.
Leading 37-29 at halftime, the Tigers exploded in the fourth quarter, with Grewal and Butler combining to score 15 of the team’s 19 final-stanza points.
18 Sofia Bergaman had 18 in the loss for Seycove, while Kayla Robinson added 10.
BOTTOM HALF DRAW
NO. 2 BRITANNIA 79 NO. 10 ST. JOHN BREBEUF 52
LANGLEY — There was a joke circulating around the Langley Events Centre that if the Simon Fraser Clan could someone find a way to suit up Britannia Bruins high school star Surprise Munie for its final game of the regular season in Montana, that they would be unbeatable.
The Clan, of course, are content to wait until next season when the 5-foot-9 guard Munie, one of the program’s most coveted recruits, joins them to begin her NCAA career.
Still, it was a whole lot of fun to join in the what-ifs, because the way the force-of-nature Munie has performed this season, it’s hard to argue that she isn’t ready at this very moment, to step right into her university career.
Battling to try and shake off the determined efforts of Abbotsford’s underdog St. John Brebeuf Bears and leading just 37-32 at intermission, Munie simply took over the contest in third third quarter, scoring nine of her 11 points in the frame, but more than anything, affecting every aspect of the contest at both ends of the floor through her magnetic presence within the proceedings.
With both she and point guard Shemaiah Abatayo, running the show out of a revamped defensive scheme over that third quarter, Britannia went on what would eventually become a 31-4 run and never looked back the rest of the way.
Munie finished with 28 points, 15 rebounds and five steals, while Trinity Western-bound Abatayo, picked the Player of the Game, scored a team-high 31 points and also had five steals.
St. John Brebeuf’s immensely-talented 6-foot-1 Grade 11 guard Marijke Duralia scored a game-high 35 points.
And while Munie is a little too preoccupied this weekend, what with Bruins set to face either St. Thomas More or St. Thomas Aquinas in Friday’s Final Four, Evans admitted that Munie’s single greatest strength would indeed allow her to fit in immediately in a university lineup.
“Physically she could do that because she just has this ability to deny space when she is checking someone,” said Evans, not a coach given to any hyperbole. “She has this way of taking away your comfort zone all the time, and I guess you could do that on almost anyone if you had the right support.”
There was a scary moment with 1:33 left in third quarter, as Munie fell hard under the hoop. She left the game with her team leading 58-36, with what turned out to be a cramp.
She was able to return later, although the success Evans had playing a revamped zone with bigs Tiana Sacco and Lagi Vaa in her absence,
“It seemed to work as well, so know I don’t know what to do,” Evans said.
NO. 3 ST. THOMAS MORE NO. 6 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
click here for a separate entry on this late game!
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