LANGLEY — Welcome to Quarterfinal Thursday here at the 2025 Tsumura Basketball Invitational.
Check back here throughout the evening for game reports from all four games on the championship side of the Super 16 draw as teams chase a berth in the Friday’s round of Final Four.
SUPER 16
(South Court)
DRAW A
ST. PATRICK 99 ARGYLE 72
LANGLEY — There is something to be said for precision, that united state of mind and body that has best been manifested during the first two days of the TBI Super 16 by one team in particular: East Vancouver’s St. Patricks Celtics.
With seven seconds left in the third quarter of its quarterfinal game Thursday agaunst North Vancouver’s Argyle Pipers, the Celts got the ball into the hands of guard Riley Santa Juana.
The senior point guard dribbled the ball up the court to the count of the game clock provided by the St. Patricks’ bench.
Santa Juana pulled up at the top of the arc for a three that he swished with about a half-second remaining, the dagger giving the Triple-A No. 1 Celtics a 79-57 lead after 30 minutes en route to an eventual 99-72 victory over the No. 4 Pipers.
“That’s an actual play,” said winning head coach Nap Santos, whose team advances to Friday’s Final Four against the winner of MEI-Vancouver College game. “We’ve been running that play since they were in Grade four, so they were ready for that.”
And on this night, it was the best example of the drilled-in-wool, muscle-memory mindset that makes St. Pats so unflappable, and without getting too technical, all of that is on display when you watch the size-challenged group get after it at both ends of the floor.
“I mean, they’re so athletic,” said Argyle head coach Jamie Oei, whose young team, winners of last season’s B.C. JV title, came in with more than a significant height advantage. “They’re such good players. We had a game plan but we didn’t follow it. You don’t follow the game plan, then you have problems. We couldn’t keep them in front of us.
“Those guys play way above their height,” Oei continued of the Celtics. “They always have, they always do. We try to use our height to our advantage, but they’re everywhere. So if you don’t… our game plan was to keep the game in the 70s or 80s, you let them score (near) 100, you’re going to lose the game.”
Santa Juana was without peer Friday, finishing with a game-high 36 points, pouring home points in all the myriad ways that such a voluminous total suggests.
Jemuel Castro added 24 points and Dhyne Cotin a further 18 points.
The Szpak Brothers were once again integral for the Pipers.
Logan Szpak finished with a team-high 32 points while Nathan Szpak added 22 points.
MEI 66 VANCOUVER COLLEGE 64
LANGLEY — On Wednesday, Abbotsford’s MEI Eagles used a stern 2-3 zone defence to upset Nanaimo’s No. 2 Quad-A Dover Bay Dolphins.
Afterwards head coach Mike Lee called it such a rarity for his team that you came away from the conversation thinking it was something more akin to a junk defence.
On Thursday, Lee kept that zone in his back pocket the entire evening, never tempted to even flash it like an emergency ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card.
Instead, with his senior-laden squad getting back to its true man-to-man identity, Triple-A No. 2 MEI won an absolute squeaker, getting huge plays down the stretch drive from a somewhat unheralded Grade 12 named Gabe Headley to beat Quad-A No. 5 Vancouver College 66-64, earning a spot in Friday’s TBI Final Four against the Triple-A No. 1 St. Patrick’s Celtics.
Afterwards, Lee was counting the blessings that come with having such an unflappable core of seniors imbedded into his team’s rotation.
“We have a ton of veterans, we’re a heavy Grade 12 team,” he said. “And I don’t know what the percentages are, but Grade 12-heavy teams tend to do well all the time, right? So it’s a testament to them, They’re no strangers to big games. So when you’re best guys, your oldest guys, don’t get rattled in the moment, you’re really lucky as a coach. Really lucky.”
Of course, the presence that senior 6-foot-5 guard Mercer Thiessen brings is unmistakable, inside and out.
Big threes in the third quarter, poise at the free throw line, and a game-high 25 points in what was scarppy, low-scoring affair… that was Thiessen’s contribution on Thursday’
Kaden Vandervelden, the big man so pivotal in the win over Dover Bay added 10 points.
But the win probably doesn’t happen without the clutch fourth-quarter play of Headley.
Just the last three minutes was ample proof of that.
First, he breaks a 60-60 tie with a dead-eye triple with 2:24 on the clock.
After Vancouver College pulls to within 63-62, he stays busy in the paint, chasing down a long rebound off the offensive glass to save possession.
He then fed guard Jaiden Buttar who was promptly fouled and hit both of his free throws for a 65-62 lead with 1:11 remaining.
“He’s worked on his game and he looks great,” Lee said of the 6-foot-2 senior. “He didn’t spend as much time in the weight room as I would have liked. But hey, I’ll take all those effort plays and those hustle plays every time. You know, heart, above all.”
Vancouver College head coach Ryan Shams said his team’s goal was to push tempo.
“Obviously it’s frustrating, but we wanted to try to speed them up and play fast, which I think we did at times because obviously they’re really skilled down low,” said Shams. “They got big guys that can play, so we just wanted to use our speed and run, right? But unfortunately, they came out on top. They’re a great team. You saw what they did to Dover Bay last night.”
Ashton Wong led the Irish with 19 points while Lucas Tang-Ngo added 16 points.
So now, in what is beginning to look like B.C. Triple-A basketball’s finest hour since its move to a four-tiered province, here come the MEI Eagles and the St. Patricks Celtics in a semifinal that could well be a preview to the actual B.C. title game this March. Of course it’s too early to make proclamations, especially because there are so many other great 3A schools and the calendar has just turned to December.
But that’s the fun part.
DRAW B
6:15 p.m. — GW GRAHAM vs. TERRY FOX
7:45 p.m. — TAMANAWIS vs. KELOWNA
