By HOWARD TSUMURA
LANGLEY — The Fernie Falcons are soaring south to the Langley Events Centre to start their 2025-26 season.
In past seasons, the normal practice for the Double-A school from the the extreme southeast corner of the province, would be to board a bus and head out to all points east of the Alberta border.
But this season, with virtually its entire team returning, head coach Jen Kennedy wanted her charges to be as prepared as possible for a potential return to the provincial championships at the Langley Events Centre in late February.
So why not accept an invitation to the Select 16 portion of the 2025 Tsumura Basketball Invitational, set to tip off its four-day run this Wednesday through Sunday at none other than the LEC?
“It can be like a preview to the provincials if we are successful with our season,” Kennedy told Varsity Letters late last month as her team was busy both on the practice floor and securing flights and accommodations ahead of their 3 p.m. opener Wednesday against Surrey’s Earl Marriott Mariners at South Court. “And we get a chance to see some of the the top teams as well. I just think it’s a great experience to just get out and give them some them some really, really good competition right off the hop.”
Due to their geographic location, the Falcons get the majority of their competition in Alberta, and this season, among its seven scheduled tournaments are stops in Lethbridge and Calgary, as well as smaller towns like Tabor and Stirling.
And although Fernie has become something of a regular the past few years at the provincials, this season seems one in which they have a genuine opportunity to make some traction at the provincials.
Guards Taylor Witbeck and Jaycee Anderson are back, along with forwards Olivia Blumhagen and Desiree French and all are seniors.
The other player within that starting group is Grade 9 forward Billie Kennedy, the daughter of the head coach, who two seasons ago played on the B.C. provincial team.
And taken as a whole, besides bringing a ton of chemistry to the fore, they also have something else that perhaps no other Fernie team has had to this degree… some real size.
Kennedy is 6-foot, French is 5-foot-11, and Blumhagen is 5-foot-10. They also have 6-foot-2 centre Kamry Yuill, and 5-foot-10 Grade 9 guard Norah Fraser.
Four other Grade 11s are a part of the team: Forward Ali Budd, and guards Heide Matejka, Josie Ferreralli and Pearl Crabbe.
And all of this from the smallest girls school in all of B.C. Double-A basketball.
“The cut-off to be Single-A is 80 and we’re at 81,” said Kennedy, who knew the number was going to be close, but not as close as it wound up being.
That said, all signs point towards Fernie being a much more experienced team than the one which last season lost 70-41 to powerhouse Langley Christian in the first round, then lost in overtime to Brentwood College 64-53 in the second round.
“It’s the first year that we actually have a higher amount of seniors so we’re super-excited for that because we have a little bit of routine and we’re excited to have a little bit of depth on our team,” said Kennedy.
And for Kennedy, carrying on the tradition of Fernie girls basketball is something that is in her bones.
She was coached by the program’s longtime mentor John Mill, graduating from Fernie Secondary in 2000 before going on to a college playing career south of the line in Oklahoma at both Eastern Oklahoma State College and later Northeastern State University.
And now Fernie gets its first TBI experience beginning Wednesday.
“We don’t get much to the city, so the girls are super, super excited,” Kennedy said. “Our group, we’re small town, but we’re gritty. They’re all here to play basketball, and our goal in the end is just to do better (at provincials) than we did last year.”
For the full TBI Super 16 and Select 16 draws, click here.
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