MEI Eagles senior Olivia Sidhu has helped her team maintain a solid grip on the No. 1 ranking in B.C. senior girls Triple-A basketball this season. (Photo by Paul Funk property of MEI Eagles athletics 2025. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

MEI puts vise grip on AAA No. 1 rank ahead of BC girls championships 75th anniversary tourney! Coach Thiessen calls his 2024-25 Eagles ‘unique’ over his 31 seasons on the bench!

BY HOWARD TSUMURAVARSITYLETTERS.caABBOTSFORD — When you’ve coached basketball for three-plus decades at the same school, you arrive at a juncture of your career where your words begin to carry an-ever deeper meaning.So when MEI Eagles’ senior girls head coach Rick Thiessen, who this season finds himself in his 31st year of guiding either a senior, […]

Prentice Lenz, who passed at the age of 53, is noted as the consummate family man, husband and educator by all who knew him. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letter 2024. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

A Sunday Read: Remembering Prentice Lenz (1971-2024), a farmer for all seasons and a coach for the ages

By HOWARD TSUMURA, VarsityLetters.caABBOTSFORD — In the parlance of his profession, Prentice Lenz tilled every inch of a basketball court with the same level of discipline, ingenuity and faith he practiced every time he’d crouch to put his hands in the earth.Farmer. Family man. Father figure. He was all three of those in ways in which […]

On his way to tourney MVP honours, Dover Bay's Frank Linder takes aim against the MEI Eagles in Saturday's B.C. Triple-A championship final March 9, 2024 at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Blair Shier property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2024. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

Boys 3-A championship: No words could be more true than ‘It’s not a race, it’s a marathon’ for Dover Bay! Dolphins’ coach Seaman, MVP Linder put trust in grand plan in B.C. title-game win over MEI Eagles!

LANGLEY — Explore the deep and voluminous lore of B.C. senior boys basketball history, and a common thread of its early days often times centres around the good, old-fashioned discipline of running.As I grew into the high school school reporter’s beat at The Province newspaper in the early 1990s, I heard the tales of teams […]

Oak Bay senior boys volleyball coach Allan Carmichael and his Barbers sit at No. 9 in the recent AAA boys volleyball rankings. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Volleyball

B.C. Boys volleyball rankings Week 2 10.06.21 edition: Owls, Eagles, Knights hold court at No. 1, biggest climbs taken by McMath, Duchess Park!

VICTORIA — Last week’s initial set of rankings at all three tiers of B.C. boys senior varsity volleyball, coming off a cancelled 2020 season, held remarkably true over the past seven days.Top threes at all three tiers remained static with Kelowna, MEI and Abbotsford Christian set to spend another week defending their No. 1 status […]

Fresh off a championship title at the UBC Thunderbirds Invitational this past weekend on the Point Grey campus, the Kelowna Owls open at No. 1 in the first AAA rankings of the 2021 season. (Photo property of Kelowna Secondary athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Volleyball

B.C. Boys Volleyball Rankings 2021: Kelowna Owls, fresh off UBC Invite title open at AAA No. 1, MEI Eagles and Abby Christian also open the re-start at No. 1

LANGLEY — The B.C. senior boys volleyball season,already underway underway the past three weeks, on Tuesday issued its first set of provincial rankings for the 2021 season, one which will be capped Dec. 1-4 when Kelowna and Okanagan Mission secondary schools play host to the provincial championships.The Kelowna Owls, who open 2021 at No. 1 […]

Lord Tweedsmuir Panthers' rising senior guard Alyza Aikins will lead her team into the 2020 Tsumura Basketball Invitational this December at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

Twenty teams for TBI 2020! Our roster for the annual senior girls Tsumura Basketball Invitational features B.C.’s best of the best!

LANGLEY — Our collective fingers are crossed with the hope that a safe fall and winter season is on the horizon for high school sports in the province of B.C.And in the spirit of that positivity, we hope that one of the final highlights of a challenging 2020 calendar year will be the latest edition of […]

G.W. Graham's Jude Hall (centre) experiences the hands-on defence of MEI's Jayden Cousins (left) during East Valley 3A zone final last month at the LEC. Also on the scene for MEI is Patrick Warrell. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

G.W. Graham ready to bear down! After four Final Fours and four Elite 8’s, Chilliwack’s Grizz set sights on four wins and a B.C. AAA title

LANGLEY — A dozen games does not a season make, yet in the case of Chilliwack’s G.W. Graham Grizzlies (23-9), everything about its most recent 12 games of this season seem a portent to their week ahead as one of the favourites at the B.C. senior boys Triple A basketball championships.The Grizzlies have been one […]

The B.C. Double-A boys volleyball championship has returned to the MEI Eagles of Abbotsford. (Photo by Paul Yates property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Volleyball

B.C. Boys Double A Volleyball Finals: After topping rival LCS Lightning, MEI’s Eagles soar to find golden and familiar perch

By Gary AhujaLangley Events CentreLANGLEY — The season has ended the way it began for the MEI Eagles: No. 1 in B.C.For the first five weeks of the 2A senior boys’ season, the Abbotsford school found itself at the top of the rankings. But in late October, the Eagles lost their perch, first to the […]

MEI Eagles' Jonathan Letkemann delivers a kill Friday against Josh Apperloo and the Langley Christian Lightning on Friday in the semifinals of the B.C. senior boys AA volleyball championships at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Paul Yates property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Volleyball

B.C. boys AA volleyball finals are all set: Super-powers MEI and Langley Christian book berths after impressive Friday Final Four wins

By Gary AhujaLangley Events CentreLANGLEY — The two preeminent AA boys volleyball programs in B.C. are set for a Saturday night showdown with the gold medal on the line.Since the turn of the century, the MEI Eagles and Langley Christian Lightning have combined to capture 13 provincial titles and a total of 27 medals over […]

MEI Eagles' Hunter Arulpragasam (left) and Tag Neufeld rise for a block against Lake Country's George Elliott Coyotes last Friday during the UBC Invitational at War Memorial Gym. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Volleyball

MEI boys volleyball: Multi-sport players, multi-experienced coach Olfert meld to lift Eagles into B.C. AA title contention

ABBOTSFORD — The 2019 edition of the MEI Eagles senior boys volleyball team has its fair share of standouts, and none of that is a surprise for the team which last week opened at No. 1 in the first B.C. Double A rankings of the new season.Senior Tyson Ardell spent the summer with Team B.C. […]