LANGLEY — LANGLEY — Day 1 is over…. we have game reports from every contest played in this bracket today! Thank you for your loyalty and join us again tomorrow for more from Day 2 at TBI 2023!
TBI 2023
GIRLS
SELECT 16
(All games played on South Court)
TOP HALF DRAW
QUADRANT A
4A-HM SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL 66 2A No. 10 ABBOTSFORD CHRISTIAN 31
LANGLEY — It may have taken Vancouver’s Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs a few possession to get into the flow of TBI’s opening round.
Yet once they did, the Bulldogs never had reason to look over their collective shoulder, a 25-2 first-quarter run showing all the explosive punch they would need.
Senior guard-forward Louise Dykstra scored a game-high 18 points as Churchill topped the Abbotsford Christian Knights in decisive fashion, setting up a quarterfinal clash with the winner of a game between Fleetwood Park and St. Thomas More in Thursday’s quarterfinal round.
Grades 11s Crystal Charchuk and Sasha Neuhaus added 17 and 12 points respectively for the winners.
2A No. 5 ST. THOMAS MORE 60 4A FLEETWOOD PARK 44
LANGLEY — All Cassie Lauang has to do to guage the heartbeat of her St. Thomas More Knights senior girls basketball team on a day-to-day basis is to come to practice and watch them execute their package of pressing schemes.
It was an instant barometre of how dialled in her Knights were Wednesday, as the Double-A No. 5-ranked Burnaby-based team opened its battle with the Quad-A Fleetwood Park Dragons of Surrey on a 21-4 run en route to its eventual 60-44 win.
“We are anchored in our defence and the girls love to press… they take it very seriously and they own it,” said Lauang who got 19 points from Grade 10 guard Mia Beliveau and 11 more from Grade 9 point guard Demicah Arnaldo. “It empowers them. It gives them energy.”
It will also give STM a tough quarterfinal match-up against another estblished 4A team — Vancouver’s Winston Churchill Bulldogs — in a Thursday quarterfinal. As usual, they will be lining up against a much taller team.
“Even though we are small, it allows us to gain an advantage over teams that are bigger than us… 4A teams, and I like how our team is very grounded in our defence,” said Lauang.
Grade 11 guard Saavyn Mann led the Dragons with a game-high 22 points while Amber Patrignani supplied a further 13 points.
QUADRANT B
4A WALNUT GROVE 62 vs 3A MAPLE RIDGE 33
LANGLEY — The Walnut Grove Gators have not faded gently into the night.
Anything but.
Last season’s B.C. Quad-A runners-up may have lost the dynamic Kiera Pemberton to graduation, yet they have done a tremendous job in rebuilding their image with an infusion of new talent.
And while all of that doesn’t add up to a place at the top of the rankings, there was no question how quickly the new group is coming together under veteran head coach Mike Miller.
On Wednesday, senior holdovers Kyanna Knodel (15 points) and Avery Sorensen (11 points) helped lead the way, and were joined by Grade 11 Lyla McKay (11 points) in 62-33 win over the Maple Ridge Ramblers.
The Gators won on the strength of a 22-7 run between the first and second quarters.
The victory propels Walnut Grove into the quarterfinals on Thursday where it will face the winner of Wednesday’s opening-round clash between Heritage Woods and R.A. McMath.
What’s hard to miss on first glance with these new-look Gators?
They might be the tallest team in the province.
Sorensen, McKay and Chloe Rutquist all stand in at 6-foot-2, while Knodel mans a guard spot at 6-foot. There’s also 5-foot-10 forward Madison Pinch.
Maple Ridge played without the services of its frontcourt star Kayleigh Mark, a 6-foot-1 Grade 11.
Senior point guard Jenna Hampton led the winners with 12 points.
3A No. 10 R.A. MCMATH 51 4A HERITAGE WOODS 45
LANGLEY — No illusions here.
That’s the idea you get chatting with the latest edition of Richmond’s McMath Wildcats.
Liz Kennedy. Caitlin Kippan. Marina Radocaj.
Yes, three of their most recent best may have departed recently through graduation, but don’t get the idea that the lifeblood of the program has lost its will to define a new attitude and character.
“We maybe don’t have the offensive power we have had in the past at McMath, but we have excellent athletes and a lot of kids that are willing to work… and work at defence,” stated Wildcats’ coach Tim Carkner, whose team found a way to outlast Port Moody’s Heritage Woods Kodiaks and come through with an eventual 51-45 win.
“Today, in second half, our defence basically changed the game,” said Carkner. “In tight games likes these, the only way to stay close is tough defence.”
That defence helped free up the Wildcats’ offence, and in that regard, there is an indentity being built in the frontcourt through returning 6-foot-3 Grade 11 post Mirella Fernandes Boshell.
Senior forward Tiana Maedel and Fernandes Boshell each scored 16 points in the win while Izzy Lloyd scored 13 in the loss for Heritage Woods.
“We want to push the fact that we have 15 or 16 players and how defence and hard work is going to maybe keep us in a lot of games,” added Carkner.
The Wildcats, B.C. Triple A champs two seasons ago and a Final Four qualifier last season, face the revamped, defending B.C. Quad A champion Walnut Grove Gators in a Thursday quarterfinal clash.
BOTTOM HALF DRAW
QUADRANT C
2A No. 4 HOLY CROSS 69 2A No. 7 ABBOTSFORD TRADITIONAL 55
LANGLEY — Surrey’s Holy Cross Crusaders knew their game plan heading into Wednesday’s TBI opener against the Abbotsford Traditional Titans.
“We tried to wear them down because they have a short bench, so that was our plan,” admitted Crusaders’ head coach Joe Vinluan.
Yet if you know the level of heart with which the seven-player Titans play with, then that is easier said than done.
In the end, Holy Cross, behind the 20-point outing of its terrific attacking Grade 10 guard Solene Jackson, got the job done, coming through with a 69-54 win.
Yet in the interests of attrition and its often-times cascading effects, its important to note that Holy Cross led the game just 56-54 with 3:29 remaining when the Titans’ Janeesh Sran, Abby Traditional’s do-it-all phenom, fouled out of the game behind a 36-point performance.
From there, the Titans did everything they could to stay afloat but simply couldn’t find ways to stop Jackson and the rest of Crusaders.
Taneesh Sran added 15 in the loss.
“They are a very gutsy group of girls, lots of fight in them from start to finish, all the way through,” said Vinluan of the Titans. “No. 14 (Sran) is a very smart player and she can really attack the ball and get the points for her team.”
Holy Cross brought their balance to the fore with Isla Iannuzi (15 points), Maryam Chaudhry (14 points) and Chloe Mangalindan (10 points) all scoring into double figures.
Vinluan applauded Jackson’s effort as the coaching staff has worked with her to seize her scoring opportunities with more gusto.
“Like the way she attacked the hoop,” he said of the 5-foot-11 Jackson. “We encourage her to do that more often. Nine times out of 10, she has a mismatch and she is very athletic.”
4A LORD TWEEDSMUIR 52 2A-HM NOTRE DAME 47
LANGLEY — Surrey’s Lord Tweedsmuir Panthers got one of Day 1’s top scoring performances and parlayed those numbers into a five-point win.
Sammy Ma’s game-high 30-point outing lifted the Panthers to a 52-47 win over Vancouver’s Notre Dame Jugglers, setting up a quarterfinal clash Thursday against another Surrey school in the form of the Holy Cross Crusaders.
Ma broke a 13-13 first-quarter deadlock by scoring the majority of the points in her team’s 18-0 run to open the second frame.
Tweedsmuir used its subsequent 31-13 lead to fend off the Juggler who pulled to within three points in the late stages of the fourth quarter.
Hanna Grewal added nine in the win.
Joanna Pepe with 18 and Maecon Glifonea with 15 led the Jugglers.
QUADRANT D
3A No. 4 MEI 64 2A No. 6 BRITANNIA 61
LANGLEY — A high school basketball game can sometimes best be described as a kind of fluid learning environment in which any number of occurences can rise out of nowhere and test a team and its players on so many different levels.
Case in point came about two minutes into Wednesday’s TBI opening-round clash between Abbotsford’s MEI Eagles and the Britannia Bruins of Vancouver.
Eagles’ senior starting point guard Ava Driedger wound up having to leave the game and seek medical attention after breaking her finger.
“It did rock us,” admitted MEI head coach Rick Thiessen. “We did settle down, but then we were in foul trouble, so we had to use different player in different positions. They held their own and we just hung on in the end.”
As part of a 64-61 Eagles’ win, the domino effect couldn’t be ignored.
Yet neither could the confidence Britannia continued to build throughout the game, peaking in a three-pointer by guard Chen Kagande which put the Bruins on top 59-57 with just a couple of minutes remaining.
It took a brief 6-0 spurt by MEI to build the final cushion they would need to advance to Thursday’s quarterfinals against the winner of a game between Oak Bay and Clayton Heights.
Lessons abound for all teams, and as MEI gets set to move forward without Driedger’s services for the next while, the head coach could only say that his team showed resilience Wednesday in a time of true adversity.
“We just had to trust that we have enough basketball players on our team that we will adjust, and so I wasn’t as concerned about that,” he said. “But the mental side of it… to recover in the same game, that is asking a lot.”
MEI got 20 points from Grade 11 guard Olivia Sidhu and 19 more from 6-foot-2 Grade 10 forward Ella Tatlock.
Kaganade finished with a game-high 22 points for Britannia while Bianca Padolina added 13 more and Cheyenna Wilson 12.
4A-HM OAK BAY 42 3A-HM CLAYTON HEIGHTS 39
LANGLEY — The pressure was on, but Oak Bay’s Molly Andulajevic played it calm and cool from the free throw line.
The Grade 11 guard stepped up and calmly knokced down a pair of free throws, snapping a 38-38 tie with 35 seconds remaining, ultimately carrying Victoria’s Breakers to a nail-biting 42-39 victory over Surrey’s Clayton Heights Riders.
The final few moments were met with heartbreak for the Riders who were unable to finish on a pair of makeable lay-ups over the dying stages of the game.
The win propels the Bays into a Thursday quarterfinal clash against Abbotsford’s MEI Eagles.
Eden Henderson led the winners with 20 points, 11 coming over an opening quarter in which she knocked down a pair of triples and got her team off to a 19-10 lead.
Andulajevic finished with 17 points, including going 4-of-6 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter.
Emma Yarwood, the Riders’ 6-foot-3 senior post, scored a game-high 25 points in defeat. Point guard Sydney Chaisson scored nine points.
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