By HOWARD TSUMURA
LANGLEY — Welcome to our Final Four Friday here in the Select 16 draw.
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.”
KING GEORGE 57 ST. THOMAS MORE 29
By HOWARD TSUMURA
LANGLEY — The King George Dragons reside in their own unique dimension within the B.C. high school basketball universe.
You know, the kind of place where you might score just 60 points but still win in decisive fashion.
With its patented zone defence suffering a case of severe bruised ego after a 68-49 loss last week at The Big Ticket to the Centennial Centaurs, the Dragons got out the collective tool kit and went to work.
The results, in its TBI Select 16 semifinal against Burnaby’s St. Thomas More Knights, were apparent off the opening tip.
The Dragons made everything tough for the St. Thomas More Knights of Burnaby, taking away their ability to penetrate and score points in the paint en route to a 57-29 victory.
“We’re a young team and we had a tough one last week against Centennial but the boys didn’t cry about it,” King George head coach Darko Kulic said. “They just said ‘We got to get this better. What do we got to do to get it back?’ And I think you can see we really always try to hold opponents under 50 points. It’s something the kids really care about.”
Abud Shawwa led the winners with 23 points.
Rei Ikeda, young and under-the-weather Grade 10 added 21 more, impressing his head coach in the process.
“Rei had a fever, he was hardly moving and he’s great,” said Kulic. “You know, I am biased, but I think he’s one of the best out there. And yeah, I was like, are you going to play? He goes, what do you think?’”
And what of the Knights?
Last season, as part of the Super 16 pool, a veteran-laden STM team put together a brilliant run to the final before losing to Dover Bay in the title game. En route to the showcase game, they beat St. George’s and Vancouver College.
This season?
They are, nearly across the board, a newer and younger version.
“And we’re still trying to figure it out, too,” said STM head coach Denzel Laguerta. “We’re so young, but yes, defensively (King George) know where they’re supposed to be in their positions and credit to them.
“I know that people kind of joke around about Darko’s enthusiasm,” Laguerta said of the lengths Kulic is willing to go to keep his players engaged and inspired, “but guys get behind him, and he knows how to get guys to buy in. They really play like a unit.”
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