LANGLEY — Welcome to Day 2 of the girls 2025 Tsumura Basketball Invitational Super 16 bracket.
Keep checking back throughout the evening for game reports from our four championship round contests
SUPER 16
TOP SIDE DRAW
HOLY CROSS 83 LANGLEY CHRISTIAN 64
By HOWARD TSUMURA
LANGLEY — ‘Deep and dangerous’ is a basketball descriptor that tends to get overused, but not when you’re talking about Surrey’s Holy Cross Crusaders.
On Thursday, in the Double-A No. 1 Crusaders’ 83-64 TBI Super 16 quarterfinal win over the Triple-A No. 3 Langley Christian Lightning, Holy Cross looked like a basketball team that had every element a team could need right there at their disposal, not the least of which was a superstar who plays as hard on defence as she does on offence in 6-foot senior forward Solene Jackson.
But perhaps most of all, the Crusaders are who they are because of the way they are able to deploy what is basically a 10-player rotation with complete and utter trust in their abilities… and that includes seven guards along with Jackson, 6-foot-1 Alyssia Palma and 5-foot-10 Meghan McCash.
“We’re really lucky to have length because we don’t typically have length,” said Holy Cross head coach Amy Beauchamp, whose team will play in Friday’s Final Four against Thursday’s Argyle-Charles Best quarterfinal. “And our bigs are just so tall and lanky that we guard… they can guard bigs and they can guard smalls, and they block a lot of shots. And the way we can move our guards around, if one gets into foul trouble then we basically have the same guard coming in.”
In a nutshell, that’s like saying, when they’re at their best, it’s hard for the opposition to take a breath.
On Thursday, the Crusaders gained their early seperation through a 14-0 run which ran between the first two quarters and put the Surrey school ahead 31-16.
Jackson was superb for the Crusaders off the opening tip, scoring 11 of her game-high 31 points in the first 10 minutes, including one in which she made a steal at the front of the Holy Cross defence and turned it into an instant sprint to the rim for a layin.
“Solene is like the heart of our team,” said Beauchamp. “She does it offensively. She does it defensively. I trust her wholeheartedly and she can guard their best player, and then she can still score 25. So she is so important to our team and a lot of our success is because of her.”
In the second half, the Crusaders continued to roll a 10-player rotartion at the Lightning.
Back in a zone defence, Holy Cross’ Mia Guerrero, the compact Grade 11 guard, made a steal out of that zone, fast-broke down the court, and got the ball to her trailing teammate Palma, who made a hoop through contact for an 80-57 lead with 3:45 remaining in the game.
Chloe Mangalindan, a 5-foot-3 guard who plays with the pperfect blen of power and finesse, scored 14 in the win.
Talented Langley Christian got 20 points from guard Payton Brunoro and 15 from guard Emma Lenhoff.
6:15 p.m. — ARGYLE vs. DR. CHARLES BEST
BOTTOM SIDE DRAW
4:30 p.m. — RIVERSIDE vs. VERNON
6:15 p.m. — SEAQUAM vs. G.W. GRAHAM
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