PORT COQUITLAM — Victoria’s finest — the Quad-A No. 1 Spectrum Thunder and No. 3 Oak Bays Bays — will be an island unto themselves Saturday night when the championship game of the 2025 Jonathon Taylor Terry Fox Legal Beagle tips off at 7 p.m.
The Vancouver Island rivals each played their best basketball in the fourth quarter, posting decisive semifinal wins Friday.
Oak Bay topped the host and No. 9-ranked Terry Fox Ravens 88-53 behind a superb 26-point outing from senior point guard Toren Franklin, with 22 of those points coming in the second and third quarters.
The Bays also got 17 points from Diem Orser and 14 more from Simon Wiwcharuk-Burr.
Matthew Klassen led Terry Fox with 14 points, while Jason Ikani added 12 more.
In the nightcap, Quad-A No. 6 Vancouver College was pesky enough to sit within nine or 10 points of undefeated, reigning provincial champion Spectrum for a good portion of the night.
Yet behind a 22-point outing from Thunder guard C.J. Zuno, which featured six dagger treys, the Thunder topped the Fighting Irish 77-58, setting up Saturday’s all-Victoria Beagle final.
“Everyone knows we’re trying to take away their big three,” said Irish head coach Ryan Shams afterwards of the Thunder’s trio of Hinrichsen, Felt and J Elijah Helman, “but No. 3 (Zuno)?… we weren’t ready for that and that is a little bit on the coaches. We watched a lot of film and we were very prepared, but he stepped up tonight.”
The Thunder got 15 points apiece from Felt and Hinrichsen, and 18 from Helman, who in the game’s final minute suffered what appeared to be a substantial ankle injury.
“He and C.J. carried us in that first half a bit,” said Spectrum head coach Tyler Verde of Helman and Zuno who combined to score 22 first-half points and stake the Thunder to a 36-27 halftime lead.
“We don’t shoot that many (three-pointers), we’re good for maybe eight-to-10 a game,” continued Verde, whose team sunk eight on Friday. “We like to attack the hoop but when CJ can do that, it’s always a big help. A big thing we’ve tried to improve is having the other guys step up and we’re doing that, so that’s key.”
On a night when the normally splash-happy Irish hit just five threes of their own, they were led by the 22 points of Andres Garcia.
Nathan Chen had 13 points and Ashton Wong 10.
Nonetheless, Irish coach Shams felt his team took a nice step forward in meeting its top goal.
“Immediately after the game I said to the guys ‘Keep your heads high, that team is undefeated and they won it all last year,’ and then I told them to believe vin themselves,” said Shams. “After that game I legitimately feel like we can contend for this thing (provincial title). We took Oak Bay to overtime (over the holidays)… we’ve taken some bumps, but we have progressed every week. I am extremely proud of these guys.”
Spectrum defeated Oak Bay 80-71 in the Gary Taylor championship final back on Dec. 21 at Oak Bay.
Terry Fox will face Vancouver College in the third-place game tipping off Saturday at 5:15 p.m.
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Hey. Give those Spectrum kids some respect. They go into every game with a target on their backs. They no one ly fight other teams, but also the fans a d the stripes .