LANGLEY — The Duchess Park Condors don’t sweat the small stuff.
The reason?
They’ve got each other.
Retiring to its nearby team hotel during the power outage which threatened their Tsumura Basketball Invitational Select 16 championship game against the Notre Dame Jugglers, the Prince George squad had so much fun waiting it out, that when it came time to go out and win a title, they proved themselves to be bigger than the moment.
And when the lights eventually came back on, they showed just how ready with a 66-51 win over East Vancouver’s Notre Dame Jugglers.
“I was in my room and had gone for a little nap,” said Duchess Park head coach Reid Roberts the LEC went into about four hours of shutdown beginning at about 1:30 p.m., aheadof the team’s scheduled 3 p.m. tip-off against Notre Dame. “When I woke up I and asked one of the coaches where everybody was, I found out that they were playing hide-and-seek in the hallways. They are so close, and they always find a way of entertaining each other, so it’s awesome.”
In fact at one point, they had started to vocalize their own song, one dedicated to the predicament they were in, having won three games in three days to earn their title-game berth only to discover that they might be able to play it.
“They were signing a song that went something like ‘Please turn the power back on so the Condors can… fly,’” Roberts laughed. “And I swear to God, the lights came on right at that moment. I said ‘OK, that is a sign. We’re going to take this one.’”
And they did.
The Condors got a team-high 16 points from guard speedy guard Mercedes Black, 13 more Naiha Manhas, 12 from tournament MVP Zahra Ngabo and 10 more from inside presence Maggie Malfair.
The Jugglers got 17 from Emily Chan and 16 from Selena Quilatan.
Roberts, whose team defeated Johnston Heights, Walnut Grove, Vernon and finally Notre Dame en route to the title, felt his Condors got everything they wanted and more from its southern treck.
“Of course we wanted to win, but this was more about getting our players experience on this stage so that when we come back, it’s like second nature, so they’re not in awe.”
And Roberts is referring to this coming February when the B.C. senior girls tournament celebrates its 50th anniversary.
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