By HOWARD TSUMURA
LANGLEY — Welcome to our Final Four Friday here in the Select 16 draw.
Keep checking back here for game reports from our two games. Patience please as your host may also be broadcasting and photographing games in addition to writing reports.
L.A. MATHESON 93 COLLINGWOOD 76
By HOWARD TSUMURA
LANGLEY — The Comeback Kids, aka West Vancouver’s Collingwood Cavaliers, mounted a fourth-quarter rally from 13 points down on Thursday to beat Brentwood College and earn a berth in Friday’s TBI Select 16 Final Four semifinals.
It was so stunning that it rightly caught the attention of their Final Four foes, Surrey’s L.A. Matheson Mustangs.
“I told them right at the start of the fourth quarter, I’m like ‘This is exactly the position they were in yesterday, and they came back and won, so we can’t relax. We got to keep doing what we’re doing,’” said ‘Stangs head coach Tyler Ram, whose team led 67-56 heading into the final frame.
And in the end, his team backed up those words with a fourth-quarter spurt of their own en route to a 93-76 win over the Cavs,
Matheson will now face the winner of Friday’s second semifinal between King George and St. Thomas More.
And as much as they have offensive flair in players like 6-foot-7 Damien Onokpite, point guard Jashan Mahal, off guard Jaiden Shergill and forward Joven Sanghera, it was a commitment to contest the ball at every spot on the floor that eventually turned a two possession lead into a clear victory at the buzzer.
“I think we really focussed on our defence. That’s our identity,” said Ram. “We’ve got a lot of length. We’ve got a lot of size. We like to use that to our advantage. We love playing in the passing lanes. I think we just forced them to take too many tough shots. In that third quarter, I think we really turn on a switch there. And yeah, we used our defence to turn on our offence.”
Onokpite led the winners with a game-high 24 points depsite battling foul problems in the second half.
Mahal had 21, Shergill 18 and Jason Hothi 13.
Yihan Wang led Collingwood with 16 points, Elliot McNeil added 15 and Peter Huang 13.
Ram painted the team’s rise to the TBI Select 16 championship game as a landmark in the program’s history following a fourth-place finish with this same group of players at the 2024 B.C. Junior championships. Its run to the Final Four that season was cut short by Terry Fox, this season a Final Four participant in the Super 16 draw.
“I mean, it’s huge,” said Ram. “Two years ago we lost to the the eventual (junior) champions in Terry Fox. Last year, we got out in the South Fraser semifinals. So these guys are really gutted about not being able to make it (to the B.C.’s) last year. So they came in really motivated. So being able to be at the LEC and being a part of this big tournament was huge for us… and to get to the finals, it means a lot.”
4:30 p.m. — ST. THOMAS MORE vs KING GEORGE
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