After sinking the game-winning shot at the buzzer in Simon Fraser's 80-77 win Saturday, Jan. 18 over the visiting, nationally 17th-ranked St. Martin's Saints at the West Gym, Red Leaf's point guard Irish Coquia (3) is swarmed by teammates (left to right) Tobe Ezeokafor, Terique Brown, Luke Howard and Tate Christiansen. (Photo by Wilson Wong 2025. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Men's Basketball

A Sunday Read: The 48-hour story of how great shooters learn live with misses to celebrate game-winning makes! SFU’s Irish Coquia does just that with buzzer-beating game-winner over No. 17 St Martin’s!

BURNABY MOUNTAIN — Great shooters never turn down big shots, and in a nutshell, that’s all you need to know about the temperature of the stuff that flows through the veins of Irish Coquia.Two nights after rushing a potential game-winning shot which fell short with a half-second remaining in a 78-76 home floor loss to […]

SFU guard Irish Coquia handled being thrown in the defensive spotlight Thursday in Montana and helped lead his team to its first GNAC win of 2024-25. (Photo by special request for VarsityLetters.ca. All images remain property of Varsity Letters 2024. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Men's Basketball

SFU men’s basketball: Offence hard to guard, defence locks down MSU-B’s threes as Howard, Coquia and Red Leafs roll to big win against host Jackets in season’s first GNAC win!

(By HOWARD TSUMURA, varsityletters.ca)Luke Howard’s final basket of the night on Thursday did a lot to prove the notion that the Simon Fraser Red Leafs’ two-game home sweep last week at the hands of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference’s two Alaska schools didn’t come in vain.In fact when Howard set a high screen for teammate […]

SFU guard Irish Coquia has made a smooth transition from high school at East Vancouver's St. Patrick's Regional, to the NCAA Div. 2 ranks with the Red Leafs. (Photo by special request for VarsityLetters.ca. All images remain property of Varsity Letters 2024. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Baseball

Simon Fraser’s Irish Coquia: As backcourt injuries mount, former St. Pat’s star comes of age in NCAA behind career-high 34 points, 10 assists in Red Leafs’ 2-OT win!

BURNABY — Soloist and conductor.The wheel of attrition has ground down especially hard on the Simon Fraser men’s basketball team over the first month of its 2024-25 season.And as its ranks have thinned at the guard spots, the Red Leafs’ urgency to get performance from one of its youngest players has grown exponentially over the […]

Simon Fraser's Irish Coquia, fresh off leading St. Patrick's to back-to-back B.C. senior boys titles, as well as a junior championship, is working on becoming a complete guard over his debut campaign with the Red Leafs. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of Simon Fraser athletics 2023. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Men's Basketball

Irish Coquia: As Red Leafs tip off vs. Hawaii Pacific, Simon Fraser’s pure freshman standout ready to work on his defence while bringing a ready-to-roll offence to SFU after winning three B.C. MVP awards for St. Pat’s Celtics!

BURNABY MOUNTAIN — I can picture the late, great Lorne Davies smiling a lot these days about a kid named Irish.When the founding father of Simon Fraser athletics planted the pioneering idea of his student-athletes competing against U.S.-based competition upon the school’s opening in 1965, he no doubt harboured a hope that one day SFU […]

Captured hugging the basketball, could there be a more apropos image of St. Patrick's B.C. tourney MVP Irish Coquia at the B.C. Triple-A senior boys basketball championship final Saturday at the Langley Events Centre? (Photo by Blair Shier property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2022. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

A SUNDAY READ: How the simple words “…Irish, it’s your time” lifted St. Pat’s Celtics past Elgin Park and to a B.C. Triple-A title dedicated to a hurting teammate!

LANGLEY — In the biggest games of his young basketball life, Irish Coquia has averaged an amazing 30 points per game.Yet in any description of the seemingly-indescribable St. Patrick’s Celtics’ Grade 11 guard, it’s important to note that despite his gaudy point totals, he scores higher in the intangibles department than any other statistical category.On […]

With the scoreboard perfectly framed to tell the story, St. Patrick's Irish Coquia sinks the biggest shot of his life Tuesday in the B.C. JV final at the LEC. (Photo by Paul Yates property of Vancouver Sports Picturs 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

Irish eyes were crying, and for good reason! MVP Coquia’s clutch dagger trey lifts St. Pats past Churchill for first-ever B.C. JV hoops crown

LANGLEY — Irish eyes were crying, but if you’d seen just what transpired over the final 20 seconds of play in Tuesday night’s B.C. junior boys basketball championships, you’d understand why.