We're looking for one more senior girls basketball team to play in the 10th annual Tsumura Basketball Invitational Dec. 15-18 at the Langley Events Centre. (Wilson Wong photo property of Wilson Wong 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

Attention B.C. senior girls basketball coaches! We’re looking for one team to complete our 20-team field at the Tsumura Basketball Invitational!

LANGLEY — Greetings B.C. high school senior girls basketball head coaches!We are short one team for our 10th annual Tsumura Basketball Invitational tournament set to run Dec. 15-18 at the home of the B.C. championships: The Langley Events Centre.I have been empowered by the tournament committee of the TBI to accept the names of any […]

Feature High School Girls Basketball

Girls TBI 2021: Our Dec. 15-18 draw unveils Terry Fox, Kelowna, Riverside, Langley Christian among our headline field!

LANGLEY — Hello high school girls basketball fans!We’ve done a lot of waiting since we all last gathered at the home of B.C. high school basketball back in March of 2020.Today, precisely two weeks ahead of the official start of the 2021-22 season, it’s time to celebrate the return of our great game.And with that?From […]

Hailey Counsell's third season of play with the UBC Thunderbirds will sees her ascend to the biggest role of her U SPORTS career as one of the team's acknowledged veteran players. (Photo by Richard Lam property of UBC athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

UBC women’s hoops 2021-22: War Gym a land of opportunity as youthful, untested ‘Birds open post-Huband era Thursday vs. TWU Spartans!

VANCOUVER — Its veterans are staring opportunity square in the face, and its rookies are going to get a chance to show early all it is that they are capable of becoming,It’s not the simplest of tasks to quantify just how different the first UBC Thunderbirds women’s basketball team of the post-Deb Huband era will […]

Trinity Western point guard Kianna Wiens is part of a four-player core from the 2019-20 season which takes to the floor for the Spartans' home opener Thursday night against the Winnipeg Wesmen at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Scott Stewart property of TWU athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

TWU women’s hoops 2021-22: Spartans’ veteran core excited to push the re-start button in home-opener vs. blue-chip Winnpeg Wesmen!

LANGLEY — Ask university coaches across the country what the search for cohesion, chemistry and identity within their rosters has been like coming off the COVID-cancelled 2020-21 season, and while each will have their own way of describing the challenges, all are delivered along the same thematic road of putting all the pieces back together […]

Trinity Western freshman guard Shemaiah Abatayo was forced to hit the court running this season after six straight months of COVID lockdown in the Philippines kept her out of B.C. from March through August. (Photo by Mark Janzen property of Trinity Western athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball University Women's Basketball

Shemaiah Abatayo: As Trinity Western’s ‘rookie’ guard preps for a hopeful 2021-22 re-start, she dishes on six months of COVID-forced lockdown in the Philippines!

LANGLEY — Shemaiah Abatayo, like the rest of Canada’s hard-luck Class of 2020 university freshmen recruits, will get a second chance to make a rookie impression when U Sports basketball courts flash their figurative green lights this coming fall.Nothing could have beaten the on-court experience that a 2020-21 Canada West season would have provided Abatayo […]

Jayden White of the Yale Lions has overcome the odds to rebound from injury and find a place next season at the University of Alberta. In Edmonton, she will play hoops, major in education and continue her studies in American Sign Language. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball University Women's Basketball

Jayden White: Special signs along the way speak the truth of compassion, tenacity Yale Lions forward carries to Alberta Pandas!

ABBOTSFORD — Ask Jayden White what it means for her to have walked the walk through a star-crossed high school basketball career, and she’ll show you this photo of the inside of a Gatorade bottle cap containing the bone chips surgeons extricated from her knee back in 10th grade.“The biggest one is the size of […]

It's been tough for high school recruits in the Class of 2021 to find places on college and university teams, yet Brookswood's Quinn Jasper and Harrison Robinson of Lord Byng have landed with Douglas College and Langara respectively. (Photos property of Howard Tsumura and Wilson Wong 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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“They need to be really persistent…” B.C. high school Class of 2021 grads in tough to find spots on crowded university & college rosters!

VANCOUVER — What’s the toughest challenge for a talented B.C. high school basketball player looking to continue his or her career as a student-athlete this coming season at the college or university level?How about simply finding a place to play?Student-athletes from B.C.’s hard-luck Class of 2021 have not only lost their entire senior season of […]

The Tessa Beauchamp Foundation has been aided in its fundraising efforts by the WLA's Langley Thunder. Pictured at a fund-raising event are (left to right) Amy Beauchamp, Caitlin Nagel née McNaughton, Cecile Dadson née Ehman and Steve Beauchamp. McNaughton and Dadson each played basketball at Holy Cross with Tessa Beauchamp. (Photo by Garrett James property of Langley Evens Centre 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

Adversity’s award: Why the Tessa Beauchamp Scholarships mean so much more to B.C. high school’s courageous Class of 2021!

SURREY — For almost a decade, it has distinguished itself as a memorial scholarship by asking its many Grade 12 student applicants to ponder a question so deeply understood by its namesake.And when you very fittingly digest that same question these days, over the final weeks of the most challenging of school years, it’s hard […]

G.W. Graham's 6-foot-2 forward Julia Tuchscherer (left) will graduate a year ahead of schedule and join her dad Al and older sister Deanna with the Fraser Valley Cascades next season. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of Wilson Wong photography 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball University Women's Basketball

Post-marked UFV: How GWG Grizzlies’ Grade 11 post Julia Tuchscherer will pivot into the paint with U Sports’ Cascades next season!

ABBOTSFORD — For about as long as Julia Tuchscherer can remember, she’s had a knack for making all of the numbers add up.She’s even done it in these challenging times, heading down the home stretch of her Grade 11 year at Chilliwack’s G.W. Graham Secondary with a 4.0 grade point average within a core of […]

Sir Winston Churchill's Marah Dykstra will help lead her team as one of the new additions to the 20-team field at the 2021 Tsumura Basketball Invitational at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of Wilson Wong 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Tsumura Basketball Invitational: Churchill, Seaquam, SMUS join girls draw as boys, girls 40-team field now official for December 2021!

LANGLEY — We are thrilled with the 40 teams who have now finalized their participation in this coming December’s 2021 boys and girls Tsumura Basketball Invitationals at the Langley Events Centre.(The full list of finalized teams is included at the bottom of this story)Yet what has us even more excited is the response we have […]