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!
GIRLS
SUPER 16
(All games played at Centre Court)
TOP HALF DRAW
QUADRANT A
4A No. 2 RIVERSIDE 92 4A No. 8 G.W. GRAHAM 38
LANGLEY — How does a proud, defending B.C. Quad-A champion, smarting more than a little bit inside after dropping a recent game and falling out of top spot in the rankings, show the rest of the province that it wants to right one of its rare wrongs?
If you watched two of the Riverside Rapids top players bolt out of the gates to open their run here at TBI 2023, it’s pretty easy to see how.
Senior point guard Avery Sussex scored 14 of her game-high 31 points in the first quarter, while Grade 11 forward Jorja Hart scored 15 of her 23 in the same frame as the Rapids built a 41-7 first period lead en route to a 92-38 win over a talented but young G.W. Graham Grizzlies team from Chilliwack.
Grade 11 guard Emily Sprott led the Grizzlies with 13 points, all coming in the second half.
The Rapids will move into Thursday’s quarterfinals and face the winner of a later Wednesday opening-round clash between St. Michaels University School and Okanagan Mission.
3A NO. 3 ST. MICHAELS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 60 4A No. 6 OKANAGAN MISSION 52
LANGLEY — Alex Motherwell is the kind of player who serves as a barometre of her team.
That is, when you see the rest of her team doing exactly what she has made a habit of the past few seasons with Victoria’s St. Michael’s University School, you know the Blue Jags are playing well.
For the record, the crash-and-bang 5-foot-8 senior guard was at the top of her game Wednesday in the opening round of TBI 2023, so when you see that SMUS edged Kelowna’s Okanagan Mission Huskies by a 60-52 count, you knwow this was one of the day’s best games.
“Size wise, we were very similar and we both have a bunch of strong guards,” said Motherwell, who scored 22 points and hit four triples in the win. “We’re not super big, but we played really hard. And I think the big thing for us was defensively just really working hard.”
Just like Motherwell said, there was not a lot to choose from between the Jags and the Huskies.
Just seeing them on the floor together it didn’t take long to see that this was not going to be a game determined by finding mismatches.
Watching them play. it felt they were all cut from the pieces of same jigsaw puzzle.
When it mattered most, however, it was SMUS’ Charley Anderson who hit the game’s two biggest shots.
Her lay-in with 2:02 remaining made it 56-49 SMUS, then Anderson came down with 1:26 remaining and unfurled a triple for a 59-49 lead.
Okanagan Mission took a 44-40 lead into the fourth quarter but were held to just a pair fields goals in the frame.
Shae Sandhu led the way with 17 points while Maya Andruchow scored 12.
All of that said, Motherwell feels all the years of team building could pay dividends this season for her team.
“We have been together since Grade 8, going to Grade 8 provincials and all of that,” she began. “Now, I feel like we are all at our very best, and I think this could be the y ear that we finally get there.”
QUADRANT B
4A No. 4 BURNABY CENTRAL 81 VS. 2A No. 2 LANGLEY CHRISTIAN 57
LANGLEY — If there is one thing which sits primary in the minds of the entire Burnaby Central Wildcats team this season, it’s finishing games with the same intensity they want to bring to the opening tip.
On Wednesday, the Quad-A No. 4 ‘Cats brought that focus, but wound up having it matched for an entire half by the young, talented and Double-A No. 2-ranked Langley Christian Lightning.
Maintaining that focus in the face of adversity, however, has its payoffs, and the Wildcats showed it with gusto, turning a 38-34 halftime lead into a decisive 24-point win.
“Our biggest thing now is to not lose intensity, we want to keep it that way through the game,” said Wildcats’ senior guard Anita Chopra, who scored 22 of her game-high 35 points in the second half. “At halftime, we made taking care of the defensive end the biggest priority and the offence would come.”
The Wildcats built their lead 63-44 after three quarters, limiting the Lightning to just 10 points in the frame.
Kierra Blundell had 19 points, Vobia Kalome 10 points and Sophia Morton a further eight for the winners.
Colette Van de Hoven scored 19 points to lead Langley Christian while Payton Brunoro added 14 more in the loss.
“We’ve been playing together for a long time and it has been all about building that chemistry, that trust through the years…I know we lost Jade (Huynh) and that she was such a huge part of the team,” added Chopra of the the current first-year UBC Thunderbirds guard. “She was our facilitator and a big leader but it’s allowed other people to step up and try to fill that role.”
4A No. 9 YALE 73 4A No. 8 SOUTH DELTA 64
LANGLEY — It may still be early in the B.C. senior girls basketball season, yet Bobby Braich admits that he is still scratching his head when it comes to the on-court execution of his Yale Lions team.
The Lions used a 13-3 run as part of a strong fourth-quarter close to avenge an earlier loss to the South Delta Sun Devils and claim a 73-64 win in its opening-round TBI clash.
Yet talk to Braich afterwards and to him, it’s a nagging lack of execution in the game’s funadamentals which continued to dog his Lions. It’s something he’s proactively trying to nip in the bud early as the stakes will continue to gt higher with the passing weeks.
“We’re not playing our game, we’re mssing easy shots,” said Braich, whose team lost to South Delta in the semifinals of the Fraser Valley Cascades invitaitonal to the Sun Devils after starting 0-of-11 from the field and 0-of-6 from the free throw line. “We’re just not doing the little things in rhythm. Then the mental breakdowns and then second-guessing, so just not fluid. But there are spurts where we look like world beaters. I told the girls today ‘We won but that is not our ‘A’ game.”
Ella Bohn led the winners with a game-high 28 points while fellow Grade 11 Maeva Carnahan added 12.
Senior guard Kaija Rutledge led the Sun Devils with 26 points while Grade 10 guard Zoe Millette added 20 points.
BOTTOM HALF DRAW
QUADRANT C
2A No. 1 MULGRAVE 77 3A No. 5 REYNOLDS 49
LANGLEY — Even without one member of its vaunted quartet of seniors, West Vancouver’s Mulgrave Titans are more than a handful for the opposition.
On Wednesday, with 6-foot guard Ava Wilson not on the floor with her defending B.C. Double-A champion teammates, Mulgrave still had plenty of everything it needed, using a 14-0 fourth-quarter run to gain ultimate separation in a 77-49 win over Victoria’s Reynolds Roadrunners.
Just how did the Mulgrave trio perform in concert with the rest of their teammates?
Guard Jenna Talib led the way with 24 points, forward Eva Ruse added 16 and guard/forward Lucy Xu supplied a further 14.
Grade 10 Maryam Mojarradi hit three triples and finished with nine points.
Reynolds was led on offence by a pair of its senior forwards.
Skyler Lubben finished with 15 points, and Bella Graves added a further dozen.
The win propels Mulgrave into a quarterfinal clash Thursday against Langley’s Brookswood Bobcats.
TRIPLE A No. 1 BROOKSWOOD 64 QUAD A No. 5 KELOWNA 57
LANGLEY — Jordyn Nohr admits she’s heard all the stories of before-their-time basketball champions and their place in the history of B.C. girls high school hoops.
There are the Terry Fox Ravens of recent vintage, and before them, the bar-setting dynastic Semiahmoo program which set the template for domination by underclassmen in this province.
Comparisons are never truly fair, yet after Wednesday, B.C. girls basketball fans can’t be blamed for viewing the current edition of Langley’s Brookswood Bobcats through very similar lenses.
Led by its wunderkind Grade 9 Jordyn Nohr, and borne almost exclusively of the Bobcats team which won last season’s B.C. junior title, Brookswood beat a well-experienced Kelowna Owls team 64-57… one which was led by its own before-her-time point guard.
“I have heard it from lots of people,” nodded Nohr when asked if she knew about the recent strain of young teams which have become provincial senior varsity contenders before reaching their senior high years.
“I train with Allison McNeill,” she added of the former Canadian national team head coach and the driving force behind a streak of dominance at Semiahmoo never before seen in B.C. girls history.
For the record, as a ninth grader, Nohr’s 33-point outpouring Wednesday, complete with all orchestral accompaniments including uncanny vision and a certain bucket-load of assists, holds its own against any Grade 9-10 phenom playing senior hoops in B.C. high school history.
“It’s good becasue we are all getting to play with each other so young and afterwards, as we get older and stronger, it will be easier,” she said after being named her team’s Player of the Game. “We struggle with the physical side of it right now.”
Ashley Vande Ven with 14 points and Emma Lehnhoff with seven also added to the offence.
Kelowna was led by the 17 points of Emma Pinkerton. Mav Chahal with 15 and Ava Thiessen with 14 also scored into double figures for the Owls.
What has life been like for the ‘Cats since they copped the B.C. title last season?
“We started training right away, getting into open gyms and we had almost our whole team out the whole summer. We went hard. We didn’t take any days off. Tonight was a game we really wanted to win and now hopefully our confidence will just go up.”
QUADRANT D
QUAD A No. 3 SEAQUAM 74 Quad A No. 10 DR. CHARLES BEST 53
LANGLEY — The Seaquam Seahawks have been residing in the blue-chip upper reaches of the B.C. girls basketball world for so long now that there is an inclination to wonder how many seniors head coach Lucky Toor is going to be starting this season.
The answer: None.
“We did play them all up at a very young age last year to take the baby steps neccessary, to understand what it takes to play at the senior level,” Toor said after his team’s 74-53 win over Coquitlam’s Dr. Charles Best Blue Devils.
“And we’re still in that growth phase… I mean we are a very young team still,” Toor continued, pointing out that there are five Grade 10s on the team, and that three of start alongside a pair of Grade 11s. “We’re still young and maturing but we’re learning how to play.”
Against and up-and-coming best program coached by veteran skipper Jim Day, the Blue Devils are jumping head first into the provincial-contending waters to begin the season.
After falling behind 44-22 at the break, they pulled up their socks and played the Seahawks a lot tougher over the final two quarters, and it was a testament to them that Toor said that his own team played a very good game from start to finish.
“I liked our energy, and I liked that a mantra of ours has been ‘Can we put together a four-quarter game with our energy… especially on the defensive end,” Toor added.
Seaquam’s three Grade 10 starters were a sight to behold, combining for 46 points.
Callie Brost scored a game-high 22 points, Camryn Tait added 14 points and Syra Toor another 10 points.
Jessica Parkinson led Charles Best with 16 points, Denise Mendoza had 12 and Avin Jahangiri 11.
4A No. 1 ARGYLE 71 3A No. 2 SOUTH KAMLOOPS 52
LANGLEY — The Argyle Pipers are going to get everyone’s best shot these days.
After all, that’s what happens to the team which moves into the No. 1 spot in the B.C. senior girls Quad-A rankings.
North Vancouver’s Pipers, however, handled the pressure from a well-coached and hard-nosed crew of South Kamloops Titans in opening round TBI play Wednesday.
The Titans stayed well within shouting distance for the game’s opening half, yet the combination of post Nathalie Francis’ ability to dominate the second-chance paint, and the smarts of guard Reese Tam wound up making the difference.
Francis scored 12 points, an important total, but one very likely dwarfed by anything else analytics might tell you about her ability to recycle Pipers possesions.
And Tam scored a game-high 17 points, leading a talented core of guards who scored into double figures.
That group included Braeli Adrian with 11 and Grade 9 Maria Maydan with 10 points.
Titans’ stalwarts Lucy Marchese (20 points) and Kiana Kaczur (17 points) led their team in defeat.
The game was tied 14-14 after the first quarter with the Pipers leading 33-24 heading into halftime.
No. 1 Argyle will face No. 3 Seaquam in Thursday’s highlighted quarterfinal matchup.
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