Alex Motherwell of the SMUS Blue Jags returns as a senior this season as the Victoria squad looks to claim the B.C. senior girls Triple-A title. (Photo by Blair Shier property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2023. All Rights Reserved)
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B.C. senior girls basketball Top 10 rankings! Preseason polls rate Riverside, SMUS, Mulgrave as teams to beat for B.C. hoops glory!

LANGLEY — A pair of defending B.C. champions, and a silver medallist from a season looking to strike some elusive gold of its own this season.That’s the back-story behind three of B.C.’s best teams, each of whom carry No. 1 rankings into the new 2023-24 campaign.Quad-A B.C. champion Riverside Rapids of PoCo and Double-A B.C. […]

His gold medal moment! After a quarter century of leading Riverside senior girls basketball and on and off the court, Paul Langford, 66, snipped the final stitch at the Langley Event Centre's Centre Court, claiming the spoils of victory. (Photo by Wilson Wong 2023. All Rights Reserved)
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Riverside 70 Walnut Grove 52: How looking past the obvious and thinking outside the coaching box helped Sussex & Rapids beat Pemberton & Gators for the 2023 B.C. girls Quad-A hoops title!

LANGLEY — The hardest thing to do this season in the B.C. girls high school basketball world was to avoid concentrating on the obvious.And as so many coaches around this province would ultimately discover, paying too much defensive attention to perhaps the greatest scorer to ever grace our midst was ultimately not the answer to […]

Commanding the court, Riverside's Grade 11 point guard Avery Sussex contends with Burnaby Central's Vobia Salome during Day 3 Final Four action at the B.C. senior girls high school basketball championships. (Photo by Blair Shier property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2023. All Rights Reserved)
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Just call her Little Magic! Like LA Lakers famed 1980 Finals switch, Riverside point guard Sussex posts up, turns tide as Rapids top Burnaby Central for finals date with Gators!

LANGLEY — If you’ve watched Riverside Rapids’ point guard Avery Sussex for any amount of time over her senior varsity basketball career, you can’t help but be struck by the level of versatility and adaptability she brings to the fore as her team’s feisty point guard.And at no time over her career has that versatility been […]

Burnaby's Central's Ankita Chopra (left) dishes the ball against Fleetwood Park's Amber Patrignani Dec. 14, 2022 in the opening round of the Tsumura Basketball Invitational at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2023. All Rights Reserved)
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Burnaby Central’s three-point reign proves too much for Rapids, No. 3 Wildcats upset No. 1 Rapids behind 26 points from MVP Chopra in Fraser North Quad-A title tilt!

BURNABY — Call it the wow factor of the Wildcats from Burnaby Central.Grade 11 forward Ankita Chopra’s baseline trey 40 seconds into the proceedings signalled the first of the team’s 15 three-point buckets on the night as the No. 3-ranked ’Cats, wire-to-wire leaders, beat the No. 1 Riverside Rapids of Port Coquitlam 74-61 to capture […]

The Quad-A No. 2 Walnut Grove Gators react to a win over No. 1 Riverside in the championship final Jan. 14 at Centennial Secondary's Top 10 Shoot-Out 2023. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2022 All Rights Reserved)
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Top 10 Shoot-Out ’23: Centennial’s mid-season showcase proves no one is unbeatable! As No. 2 Gators top No. 1 Rapids in Quad-A showdown, both teams reflect on lessons learned the hard way!

COQUITLAM — They’ve always played under a moniker, which in the grand tradition of the best high school nicknames, has lacked a genuine relevancy to either its history or its geography.Yet if you were among those in attendance for Saturday night’s championship final of Centennial Secondary’s re-borne Top 10 Shoot-Out senior girls basketball invitational, you […]

Avery Sussex exerted her on-court generalship in ways that reminded of you of the Riverside Rapids run to the B.C. Quad-A championship game last March as the Grade 11 point guard scored 33 points and led her team past OKM and into the finals Saturday against Walnut Grove. (Photo by Ryan Molag property Langley Events Centre-TFSE 2022. All Rights Reserved)
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Tsumura Basketball 2022: It’s Kiera and Avery in TBI’s title tilt tonight after Pemberton & Gators top Mulgrave, and Sussex & Rapids top OKM’s Huskies!

LANGLEY — The two teams ranked at the very top of the B.C. senior girls Quad-A Top 10 poll have done their part to help create a dream championship final here at the 2022 Tsumura Basketball Invitational.And the best part of all?The No. 1-ranked Riverside Rapids of Port Coquitlam and the No. 2-ranked Walnut Grove […]

Riverside's Avery Sussex helped her Rapids to a TBI-title win in 2021 over the crosstown Terry Fox Ravens in what was a precursor to the 2022 B.C. senior girls Quad-A championships won by the Ravens. The 2022 Tsumura Basketball Invitational tips off a four-day run Wednesday and you can be sure there will be plenty of clues offered as to who might well win the 2023 B.C. crowns at Quad-A, Triple-A and Double-A. (Photo by Wilson Wong 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Tsumura Basketball 2022: Our 32-team girls event tips off Wednesday in historic fashion with all four preseason No. 1’s set to take part!

LANGLEY — The 2022 senior girls Tsumura Basketball Invitational, set to open a four-day run Wednesday at the Langley Events Centre will unveil something of an historic opening-day draw.No official records have been kept, but our star-studded 32-team tournament, broken down into three separate draws this season, may well likely be the first to ever […]

Riverside's Avery Sussex and the rest of her Rapids shoot for the first B.C. senior girls varsity hoops title in school history this season. (Photo by Wilson Wong 2022. All Rights Reserved)
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B.C. senior girls Top 10 hoops rankings! As 2022-23 tips off, it’s Riverside, McMath, Mulgrave and Credo sitting as the team’s to beat!

LANGLEY — A new season of B.C. senior girls high school basketball begins next week.And to get you ready for the all big opening tip-offs, Varsity Letters presents the latest official pre-season rankings at all four tiers.It’s a talented quartet off tiers to be sure, and what makes it even more interesting is the fact […]

The Langley Christian Lightning seem ready to make a third run at the thus-far elusive B.C. senior girls Double A basketball championship title this March at the Langley Events Centre. It's a quest being led by the team's talented trio of seniors (left to right) Taelor Coxford, Sydney Bradshaw and Lainey Shelvey. (Photo graphic by Gabriel Lynn, photos by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2022. All Rights Reserved)
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The ‘Strikes Thrice’ magic of the Langley Christian Lightning! In a tier-free girls high school basketball world, might Double-A powers be BC’s No. 1 overall team?

LANGLEY — Imagine a B.C. girls high school basketball world without any tiers of classification.Instead, replace it with a soup pot of sorts in which every team in the province is thrown together to form a chowder-like broth.Bring to a boil.Cover.Simmer.Let the cream rise to the top.And when you lift that cover, who might you […]

After her game-high 31 points on Tuesday, Riverside's Avery Sussex is averaging 23 ppg in two meetings this season against the crosstown rival Terry Fox Ravens. (Photo by Wilson Wong 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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Riverside stocks its mint from the free-throw line! Quad-A No. 1 Rapids make their trips count in win over crosstown No. 3 Terry Fox Ravens!

LANGLEY — The Riverside Rapids may have forgotten to bring their vaunted three-point shooting game to Tuesday’s second round in the Battle of PoCo.Yet in the end, the Quad-A No. 1 Rapids simply exchanged an icy time from distance for a white-hot one from the charity stripe en route to a decisive 88-60 win over […]