LANGLEY — Welcome to Day 2 of the 2023 B.C. senior boys high school basketball championships.
TOP HALF DRAW
STORY BY DAN KINVIG (Special for Varsity Letters)
NO. 6 FLEETWOOD PARK 89 NO. 3 VANCOUVER COLLEGE 71
LANGLEY — You couldn’t have blamed the Fleetwood Park Dragons if they had a strong sense of déjà vu walking into the LEC’s arena bowl on Thursday afternoon.
Nor could you have blamed them if it made them uneasy.
Staring across at the Dragons in the Quad-A quarter-finals were none other than the Vancouver College Fighting Irish – a familiar scenario for Fleetwood Park, and not a pleasant one for them historically.
“We’ve played VC in I think the last five years in the junior or senior B.C.’s, and come up short every time,” said Dragons co-head coach Nick Day, whose squad dropped a 94-79 decision to the Irish at this precise juncture of the 2022 Quad-A senior boys championships. “There’s been some good battles.
“We were confident coming in. We felt if we played the way we wanted to play, we could get it done.”
Indeed, the No. 6-seeded Dragons finally slayed their arch-nemesis, riding a dominant second-half performance to an 89-71 upset over the No. 3 seed in the draw.
“It goes really deep for us, and we knew that we had to get them this year, for sure,” echoed Aaron Uppal, Fleetwood Park’s dynamic senior point guard.“Every time we’ve seen them, it’s been in the quarter-finals, actually.
“When I saw the draw, I just knew we were showing up for this game and that this was going to be our time. There’s no better time to show up and play hard than this, right here.”
During the tightly contested first half, Vancouver College found the majority of its offence from beyond the arc, draining six triples as a team including two apiece off the fingertips of Isaiah Bias and Finn Teasdale.
Fleetwood Park, in the early going, found more success slashing to the hoop via guards Uppal and precocious Grade 10 Rohan Dhanoa. Then in the second quarter, Grade 11 forward Izaec Oppal caught fire, swishing a trio of triples in quick succession as the Dragons took a modest 36-34 lead into the break.
The Surrey squad seized control of the proceedings in the third quarter, opening the frame on a 13-4 surge to stretch the lead to double digits. Fleetwood Park’s balance was apparent, as all five starters hit the scoresheet in the quarter, paced by Inder Deol’s nine-point outburst.
Roko Maric, College’s 6’9” centre, did all he could to keep his team in it, scoring 11 third-quarter points on a variety of tough finishes in the paint.
The Fighting Irish mounted a comeback effort early in the fourth – they trimmed a 12-point deficit to 67-62 after Teasdale and Mikyle Malabuyoc knocked down back-to-back triples.
But on this day, the Dragons would not be denied. They scored the next five points to restore the double-digit lead, and put the finishing touches on the upset from there.
Fleetwood Park’s balance was incredible – Uppal’s 20 points were team-high, followed closely by Deol with 18, and Oppal, Dhanoa and Eesher Sarai with 17 apiece.
Maric, with 19 points, was gallant in defeat for the Irish, who got 17 points from Teasdale and 15 points from Bias.
“We’re a team where we’re so talented individually, a problem for us all season has been utilizing each other, trusting each other, playing together as a team,” Uppal analyzed. “This game, we really honed in on playing together. Moving the ball was key for us, running out in transition and trusting each other was big.
“Now, we’ve got to look forward. We’re going to celebrate this for now, but we’ve got to look forward and make a run.”
NO. 2 OAK BAY 95 ABBOTSFORD 77
STORY BY HOWARD TSUMURA
LANGLEY — Griffin Arnatt takes his orders with aplomb, and in the process has his Oak Bay Bays marching into the B.C. Quad-A semifinals on Friday.
With Arnatt providing the primary defence on Abbotsford Panthers’ star Dilveer Randhawa, and the Bays continuing to buy into their lock-down ways, the Victoria-based team punched its Final Four tickets, downing the Panthers 95-77 and setting up an 8:45 p.m. showdown with Surrey’s Fleetwood Park Dragons.
It’s the Bays first Final Four since 2017.
In a January meeting with Abbotsford at the Vancouver College Emerald tournament, the Bays beat Abbotsford 106-89, yet surrendered 53 points to senior Panthers forward Randhawa in the process.
This time around?
“We came in with a better game plan of helping and shading and putitng pressure on him,” said Arnatt who helped hold Randhawa to 23 points this time around, while scoring a game-high 39 points himself. “But I got to give him props because even at the end of the game, he hit like four threes. It could have gone either way, but luckily we won.”
Randhawa scored 12 of his 23 in the fourth but Abbotsford couldn’t get to closer than 15 in the final frame.
Having had one live, up-close-and-personal experience with Randhawa, however, was important in devising a plan to slow him down the second time around.
“Griff is a really good defender and super long,” said Franklin. “We were really trying to crowd him on the catch and force him to bounce to the nearest help and kind of try and figure it out a little bit from there because we knew if we gave him any space, he is the kind of guy that if one goes in, then it’s two and then it’s all heck breaking loose.”
And while slowing Randhawa was their number one priority, they also had to contend with Panthers’ guard Hayden Sansalone, who over the second and third quarters poured home 25 of his team-high 29 points.
And all that said, it was as much about Arnatt’s ability to score, which he did in bundles, with 17 of his 39 coming in the fourth quarter. That final frame saw him stroke three of his five triples on the night.
Now, with Fleetwood on tap next, Franklin used the Surrey’s team’s dialled-in effort in a win over No. 2 seed Vancouver College as the perfect example of how anything is possible at this time of the year.
“They said this was a three-team race, and Fleetwood clearly showed that it wasn’t,” said Franklin of a trio in which the No. 2 Bays and No. 1 Totems remained alive (prior to its game against Terry Fox).
“Fleetwood showed that this is high school basketball… they proved it abundantly today.”
The Bays now play their biggest game of the season on Friday at 8:45 p.m., giving them plenty of time to sit back during the day and watch a Victoria Vikes team filled with former Bays and other Vancouver Island products face the UPEI Panthers in the opening round of the U SPORTS Final 8 national championships.
When asked when the last time the Bays made a B.C. boys Final Four, Franklin replied: Jaden Touchie’s senior year (2017). My boy! He and Diego (Maffia) playing in the national championship tournament tomorrow. It’s fantastic. I am going to have the boys together to watch Touchie, Diego, three players from Claremont, another from Cowichan and yet another from Shawnigan, all on the Vikes… the Island is just thrilled with their representation”
Owen Lewis added 19 points for the Bays in its win over Abbotsford. Sahil Kingra scored 18 in the loss for the Panthers.
BOTTOM HALF DRAW
STORY BY HOWARD TSUMURA
STORY BY HOWARD TSUMURA
NO. 1 SEMIAHMOO 89 NO. 8 TERRY FOX 56
LANGLEY — With his team leading 76-32 with 2:34 remaining in the third quarter Thursday night, Semiahmoo Thunderbirds’ guard Torian Lee found a perfect opportunity staring him straight in the face.
After all, he was on the big Arena Bowl floor at the Langley Events Centre with a clear path to the basket and a chance to put down a thunderous slam dunk.
For whatever reason, Lee rose to the rim, but missed the dunk.
It might have been the only thing that didn’t fall for the No. 1 seeds, who took down PoCo’s Terry Fox Ravens 89-56 in the quarterfinal round at the 2023 B.C. Quad-A championships, continuing to serve notice that they’re No. 1 seed has been well-earned.
Lee was as special as they come Thursday, hitting six three-pointers among his seven made field goals to finish with 20 points.
And forwards Markus Flores and Cole Bekkering brought more of the same with 20 points apiece of their own.
On a night when Semiahmoo returned to the Friday Final Four, head coach Les Brown had to acknowledge that his team has clicked into the kind of post-season groove that every team searches to find.
“A couple of other things offensively,” he said when kiddingly asked if Lee’s dunk was indeed the team’s only miss. “But it was pretty close to a really perfect game for us.”
The view from the other side of the court, from Ravens’ veteran head coach Rich Chambers was pretty much the same as Brown’s.
“They are very good, we knew that,” began Chambers of the Thunderbirds. “And we’re very disappointed with how we played tonight. They physically just took us out of everything.”
When asked to clarify, Chambers didn’t flinch.
“There were No X’s and O’s there, they just just kicked the crap out of us,” he said. “I think they went 13-for-19 from the three. They are just deep and good.”
Trailing 11-10 in the opening quarter, Semiahmoo finished the frame on a 14-0 run and never let up on the throttle until subbing freely later in the fourth quarter.
Sukhraj Garcha, the Ravens’ bruising 6-foot-2 forward, led the losing cause with a game-high 25 points. Teammate Christian Moore, a fellow 6-foot-2 forward, added 22 more.
For Brown, it was a case of his team continuing to answer the call for intnensity off the opening tip.
It’s the surest sign that Semiahmoo has brought its briefcase appraoch to these 2023 championships.
“We talked about that a lot,” Brown confirmed. “This whole week was just a business trip, and we want to stay focussed on what we do. It’s been a goal of ours since last year after we lost to Burnaby South (in the 2022 B.C. championship game). We don’t shy away from it.”
NO. 5 KELOWNA 72 NO. 13 ELGIN PARK 69
STORY BY HOWARD TSUMURA
LANGLEY — It was the craziest 7.3 seconds on record at the B.C. senior boys basketball championships in many, many a moon.
And when its trio of incredulous moments were complete, emotions reached a zenith of polar opposites,
Kelowna guard Owen McParland stepped into a short return pass from teammate Nash Semeniuk and banked home a 33-foot shot off glass with .5 seconds remaining Thursday, lifting the No. 5-seeded Kelowna Owls to a 72-69 win over Surrey’s 13th-seeded Elgin Park Oracs, in the process earning a spot in Friday’s Final Four.
“I just saw the clock and threw the ball up hoping that it would go in,” said McParland, who began the winning series by inbounding the ball in the front court to temamate Nash Semeniuk, getting it right back, then hoisting the shot that sent the Owls into elation and the Orcas into agony.
“You get to that point and … they get the ball in, take a couple of dribbles and Hail, Mary, there it goes,” said a disappointed Orcas’ head coach Kirk Homenick.
“But it wasn’t pure,” Homenick said, trying to find some levity in a tough moment. “He didn’t call ‘bank’.”
The play was the capper on a trio of highlight reel buckets, any of which, on their own, could stand alone as dagger plays.
With the clock ticking down, and the score tied at 67-67, Semeniuk stole the ball from Elgin Park’s wonderfully-gifted 6-foot-7 guard Adam Olsen, and made a beeline to the basket, and with Olsen keeping pace and right on his hip, he laid the ball up and in for a 69-67 Elgin Park lead with 7.3 ticks remaining.
Elgin Park later inbounded the ball deep in the frontcourt, with Grade 11 post Dylan Homenick sending a pass right into the shooting pocket of Olsen, who in turn sunk a clutch 14-footer along the baseline to tie the score at 69-69 with 3.8 seconds left.
After a Kelowna time-out, McParland inbouded to Semeniuk, who cued it back to McParland for the win.
“I trusted him, I knew he was my best shooter, and said ‘I got to get it to him,’” Semeniuk said afterwards of feeding McParland. “That was a lot of emotions, man. We were winning and I was so happy, then they shot and its tied and you’re down. But you trust your teammates, and you get the win.”
The contest was tight throughout, the underdog Orcas proving throughout, with their size, acumen and unflappability, that their No. 13 seed clearly mis-identified what their potential has been at this tourney.
Yet the smaller Owls proved their mettle from the opening tip, trusting their extended zone press to not let them down, and their match-up zone to make things just tough enough to neutralize the skill and size of both the 6-7 Olsen (28 points) and the 6-8 Homenick (29 points).
“With their size, they gave us problems but we’d grind and grind and find a way,” said Kelowna head coach Harry Parmar. “We missed bunnies and free throws early, but we thought that our pressure would get to them.”
Three Owls hit double figures in a game, which from Kelowna’s perspective, was not defined by a go-to player, although the Grade 11 Semeniuk, who led with 17, would come close.
Guard Walker Sodaro had 13 and McParland, who hit three threes, finished with 11.
Certainly No. 1 Semiahmoo is coming in as the favourite in Friday’s 7 p.m. semifinal clash, and that means the Owls’ will need to produce a signature win if they hope to see the bright lights of the Langley Events Centre’s Arena Bowl at 8 p.m. Saturday night.
“We love this court,” Parmar said. “We love this court. This court has been good to us. Character win for those boys. I said to them ‘No one knows who you are, go get some respect tonight so that you make sure they do.’”
On a night filled with more drama than 7.3 seconds might have a right to contain, the essence of March Madness, pulled our emotions in opposiste directions like only it can.
And the best part? This tournament is only half over!
If you’re reading this story or viewing these photos on any website other than one belonging to a university athletic department, it has been taken without appropriate permission. In these challenging times, true journalism will survive only through your dedicated support and loyalty. VarsityLetters.ca and all of its exclusive content has been created to serve B.C.’s high school and university sports community with hard work, integrity and respect. Feel free to drop us a line any time at howardtsumura@gmail.com.
If you’re reading this story or viewing these photos on any website other than one belonging to a university athletic department, it has been taken without appropriate permission. In these challenging times, true journalism will survive only through your dedicated support and loyalty. VarsityLetters.ca and all of its exclusive content has been created to serve B.C.’s high school and university sports community with hard work, integrity and respect. Feel free to drop us a line any time at howardtsumura@gmail.com.
