By Howard Tsumura
(Editor’s note — due to the ticking of the clock, older sportswriters must first get their proper sleep. Apologies, but the Vancouver College-Brookswood game report will hopefully materialize with the morning rooster! Hopefully not too much later. Here’s my Burnaby South-Holy Cross report. — Howard)
LANGLEY TOWNSHIP — Junior varsity basketball games may, at 32 minutes of game-clock time, be a lot shorrter in duration than say you’re average Lakers-Celtics clash.
Four eight-minute quarters makes for a pretty short evening if you’re more accustomed to games of the NBA variety and their expansive 12-minute quarters and 48 total minutes of game-clock duration.
Yet don’t think for a second that two of the more fleet-afoot teams here at the 2026 B.C. Junior Boys basketball championships aren’t capable of playing with efficiency at the highest of tempos, many of whom don’t yet even have their learner’s permits.
On Monday, as the round of Final Four opened here at a standing-room-only Langley Events Centre, the No. 2-seeded Burnaby South Rebels and the No, 3-seed Holy Cross Crusaders opened their contest like two teams convinced the goal was nothing but a flat-out 100-metre sprint to a berth in Tuesday night’s final.
Now a 21-18 score after one quarter might not sound like a lot, but the score the Crusaders led the Rebels by after that first eight minutes was actually pretty darn break-kneck at its core.
In fact, if you convert it into points per minute and projected it over a 48-minute NBA duration, it would have worked out to a 127-108 Holy Cross win, a score that would have outdone almost any score during the Vancouver Grizzlies’ NBA expansion season of 1995-96.
Before we forget, it’s important to note that Burnaby South wound up rallying to beat Holy Cross 76-64 and earn a berth in Tuesday’s final against No. 1 Vancouver College, with the point being made here that after that first quarter, the Rebels realized that although they themselves are also a prodigious offensive team, it was smarter to play the final three quarters a completely different way.
“Yeah, that’s right, the goal was to slow them down because as I said, they’re very similar to us and they want to play fast,” explained Burnaby South head coach Cody Cormack, whose team used a 25-9 second-quarter to flip the script on their talented foes. “That’s why we had to throw in different defences here and there… just as a bit of a speed bump, because they’re a little bit deeper than we are. So our starters play some heavy minutes and to play at that pace for four quarters, can be a little bit dangerous.”
Added thte Rebels’ guard Nolan Ellis, who finished the night with 11 points: “It’s always defence first. We’re just playing as a team, then pushing the pace, and that’s how we get it done.”
Coming out of that first quarter with a few defensive tweaks seemed to pay quick dividends, and afterwards, Cormack admitted the frequency with which they have faced Holy Cross over the years helped them try and devise something they hoped would work.
“We had some film from the last few times we played them. We had a bit of a different game plan. Switched our defences up a little bit, and I think it helped us be successful.”
And turning up the defensive intensity, as if often the case, had a direct carryover to the offence as all five of the Rebels starters hit double-figures in scoring, led by its ultra-consistent guard Miguel Samson, who scored 10 of his game-high 22 points in the fourth quarter.
“Mr. 20 points,” Cormack said, paying homage to his high-volume dependability. “He gets his buckets one way or another, whether it’s through our offence or through his defence, and he is the most consistent player on our team when it comes to putting the ball in the hoop and I think you saw that again today.”
Grade 9 point guard Caelan Relova showed poise on his way to a 17-point outing, 6-foot-3 forward Emmet Bergholz hit four triples and finished with 16, and Nathanael Osei-Boadu had 10.
When the going got tough behind a rallying fourth-quarter attempt by the Crusaders, Relova proved especially resilient, despite his age.
“That’s a grade nine, so, you know, at the beginning of the year, there is some pressure on him playing the point guard spot,” smiled Cormack.”You’re naturally looked upon as a leader. And we wanted to make sure that he had the confidence to do that in a group of Grade 10s.”
Holy Cross was led by the 18 points of its own talented Grade 9 in guard Isaiah German who hit two threes and had 10 points after the first quarter.
Marko Davidson added 15 points while Darren Amadi, the picture of toughness, finished with 13 points while exemplifying what it means to lead with your heart on the highest stage.
Amadi picked himself up off the floor countless times, had no intention of ever leaving the court and made you think how absolutely indispensible he will be by the time he is Holy Cross senior.
Holy Cross head coach Logan Mathers couldn’t help but address the contrast from the first quarter to the second as Burnaby South took a 43-30 lead into the break.
“I mean, our first quarter was really good, and our second quarter… we just didn’t really play any defence. We weren’t helping off the ball and they got a bunch of easy shots. So we made an adjustment coming into the (second) half. We did a better job with it, but we just dug ourselves too deep of a hole. It’s a learning lesson for sure. You just can’t dig yourself that deep of a hole against a good team.”
Now, Burnaby South gets a rematch of the 2022 championship final in which it lost to the Fighting Irish 51-45.
Clearly, it’s all hands on deck.
“I mean, they gotta play with everything they got,” Cormack said of the effort it will take to overcome a No. 1-seeded, undefeated (33-0) team that has already beaten them twice this season.
“I think they’re ready for it,” he said of his team. “I think it’s tough to beat a team three times in one year. And we’ve lost twice. So hopefully this is magical number three.”
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