LANGLEY — By the time the fourth quarter had hit its stretch drive in a game much too close to call, Abbotsford’s MEI Eagles were flapping along on ruffled feathers, busy just trying to maintain their intended flight plan towards a championship title here at the Tsumura Basketball Invitational.
It was, after all, the very juncture of the game were their opponents in the Select 16 championship game, Burnaby’s St. Thomas More Knights, had mustered game-winning come-from-behind runs the past two days over Vancouver’s Sir Winston Churchill and Walnut Grove of Langley.
Tied at 60-60, tied at 63-63, tied at 66-66.
One haymaker after another in front of an appreciative crowd at the Langley Events Centre before finally, an MEI team which had exhausted its supply of three point guards — all lost due to injury over the course of the week — found a way to marshal its strengths and close the game on a 14-4 run.
Final score: MEI 79 St. Thomas More 70.
“We said before the game they were going to come at us relentlessly, but that we just had to withstand it when they go on a run,” said MEI head coach Rick Thiessen of the Knights’ full-court pressure schemes which had allowed a team without any substantial height to fashion magical finishes behind late rallies.
“I said the same thing to them at halftime, that they are going to have those runs on us, but that we just can’t get flustered,” continued Thiessen. “We were going to play methodically and use our height to our advantage, and we did. Then we got some clutch threes when we needed them today from a variety of people. We did it by committee.”
Yet in the end, Grade 9 call-up point guard Kylia Schellenberg did an excellent job of stepping into a hostile defensive effort, and because of the ease with which the Eagles were able to break STM’s pressure in the early going, one part of the Knights advantage never got a chance to fully play itself out.
“That was on them,” said STM head coach Cassie Lauang, tipping her figurative coaching hat when asked afterwards why the Knights seemed to dial back their press. “They adjusted really quickly to our pressure. I thik (MEI’s game plan) was to break our pressure, number one, and then to clog up the paint and not allow us to create and penetrate the zone to get those threes that we have been getting. I think moved very actively in their zone and that is what caused us trouble today.”
The run to which Thiessen had warned his team it would need to weather came during a third quarter in which the Knights’ guards Demicah Arnaldo and Mia Beliveau, who check in at 5-foot-2 and 5-foot-5 respectively, started to hit from the outside.
Arnaldo hit three triples and Beliveau a pair over a third-quarter stretch in which it outscored MEI 23-11 to take a 59-50 lead into the final quarter..
After that, however, the magic seemed to run out.
And on the flip side, the Eagles’ dynamic trio of forwards Lola Reimer and Emma Tatlock and guard Olivia Sidhu, combined to score 20 of their 60 total points in the final frame.
Tournament MVP Sidhu finished with 20, while Reimer, her team’s game MVP, scored a team-high 23 points. Tatlock added another 17.
Asked about what meshed best on offence Saturday, Thiessen put it all down to having each other’s backs.
“We have some exceptional players who are learning to play with each other and with the rest of their teammates and we are really highlighting trusting each other,” said Thiessen. “And that means trusting that you will get the ball back as one of out scorers and that you can trust that the ball will be in your hands when it needs to be.”
Lauang was visibly moved in the post-game by the efforts of her Knights over a four-games-in-four-days span which may well serve as the emotional underpinning of her team’s drive towards a return trip to the B.C. tournament.
“The heart that they showed and the way that they fought back when things were tough, when they were down, I haven’t seen that before,” the coach explained. “I haven’t seen a team shoot this bravely, even when things weren’t going well. And the way they tried to create for (their teammates) and then get confidence by their success, that is a sign of maturity beyond their years.”
Arnaldo and Beliveau were huge in combining for 52 points in the loss. Arnaldo scored 27 points on her way to her team’s Game MVP award, while Beliveau had 25 points.
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Howard, I have said this so many times…”there is no one who has done more for high school sports EVER IN THIS PROVINCE”. That being said, thank you again for what you do, especially for the girls game (background noise for many). Everyone , especially the athletes, appreciates it!