By Howard Tsumura
SURREY — In your entire high school life, is there any course in the classroom you could take that would teach you the true meaning of sacrifice and perseverance in the quest of your cause better than playing a win-or-go home basketball game for a berth to the B.C. championships?
Better still, how about getting to the same precise stage in your season three years in row after having lost the first two times?
Those were the precise resumes that the five seniors from East Vancouver’s Sir Charles Tupper Tigers carried into Tuesday evening’s B.C. senior girls Triple-A championship back-door sudden elimination qualifier against Abbotsford’s Robert Bateman Timberwolves on the neutral court of Surrey’s Southridge School.
Oh, and then there’s that small matter of the Tigers having not qualified for the B.C. championships for 45 years before breaking the drought on Wednesday.
“I think I’m like a little speechless,” admitted Tupper co-coach Elisa Wong after the Tigers, behind a 34-point performance from its 6-foot-1 senior guard Denira Dundas, punched their tickets to the LEC behind a hurricane-force fourth quarter en route to a 63-50 win.
“I was trying to speak to the girls and it wasn’t even English… I don’t even know if I’m speaking English to you right now,” continued Wong. “But like we’re so, so excited.”
Tough not to be after the crushing heartbreak of the prior to back-door B.C.-qualifying win-or-go-home losses to at the Vancouver Sea-to-Sky championships in 2024 to Little Flower Academy and in 2025 to Sentinel.
Yet Wong testified to the fact that for the likes of seniors Dundas, Taya Hendrickson, Zion Nicholson, Angelina Panago and Steph Uclos, sweat equity has its way of paying dividends in unexpected moments.
“We have five seniors and those five seniors have been through it every year, so this third time is the charm,” she added of a game that had as many dizzying runs as summer evening ride on the PNE rollercoaster.
Consider that Tupper went on a 10-0 run to open the game, but then was thundered in its collective solar-plexus by a 24-3 response by the ‘Wolves, who behind the fine play of senior Gia Padwal (14 points) and Danny Konishi (16 points) seemed to have all the moment up 24-13 in the second quarter.
Robert Bateman, who last season qualified for provincials as Eastern Valley No. 2, led 32-29 at halftime.
News flash: The runs just never stopped in the second half.
Bateman’s 11-4 surge had them up 48-40 late in the third.
Yet after all that had happened before it, the fourth quarter, from Tupper’s perspective, seemed to unfold as a truism of sorts, an internal reaction to the pain felt from coming out on the short end of the BC’s two seasons in a row, with one last chance to grab the brass ring as seniors.
The Tigers, who had gone an incredible 0-for-8 from the free throw line in the third quarter, mounted yet another about-face re-invention, this time going on a 12-0 run to start the final frame, all a part of a 16-2 fourth quarter in which the Timberwolves were unable to get to the free throw line.
“What’s so funny is that we were getting free throws in the third quarter, and I was a little worried. I was like ‘If we’re going to get them in foul trouble, we’ve got to hit those free throws,’” said Wong. “And the big switch was putting Denira on their best ball handler (Padwal). She was manipulating the game really well and able to play a very simple game of pick-and-pop with (Konishi).”
The Tigers switching of their guards in tandem with a bigger lineup was the tweak in personnel that Wong said was key to finding such consistent flow on offence over the final 10 minutes.
Dundas put an exclamation mark on her performance by scoring 11 of her 34 in the fourth quarter, yet her effort represented so much more than just her bushel of hoops.
“I think this might be one of her best games,” said Wong of Dundas, bound for a U SPORTS career beginning next season in the provincial capital with the Victoria Vikes. “She was very poised today and she was calm and she made sure everybody else was calm and that was great leadership.”
Fellow 5-foot-11 senior forward Taya Henrickson along with Grade 11 guard Isabel Daley scored four and five points respectively but made their biggest mark in defensive roles. And senior guard Zion Nicholson hit a pair of threes and finished with 12 points.
In a pair of B.C. Quad-A senior girls backdoor qualifiers played Wednesday at Port Coquitlam’s Riverside Secondary, Surrey’s Lord Tweedsmuir Panther used a 16-5 game-ending run to rally past Langley’s R.E. Mountain Eagles 59-52, while North Vancouver’s Handsworth Royals got 26 points from Leila Aaker scored 13 of her game-high 26 points in the fourth quarter as North Vancouver’s Handsworth Royals mounted a fourth-quarter rally to edge Coquitlam’s Centennial Centaurs 58-52.
Back at Southridge?
The trip to provincials is the first for the Tupper senior girls since the school hosted the B.C. top-tiered Double-A championship tournament in 1980, a season in which Duncan’s Cowichan Thunderbirds beat Vancouver’s Cheryl Kelsey-led Killarney Cougars 61-53 in the title game.
“When I heard (1980), you know what?,” joked Wong, 42, “that’s so long ago, it’s kind of like the same as never being… that we hadn’t been to the provincials since before I was born. I’ve been here for close to 20 years (co-coach Terry Loo has been there for 32 years), and so it’s a huge thing… a huge thing for us, for our girls basketball program.”
It’s also what this time of the season is all about, and why every year around this time, the most important things a high school can teach wind up happening — win or lose — outside the classroom.
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My daughter played for Coach Loo and can attest to his dedication and the hours and hours of work he has put into the program at Tupper. When Coach Wong came to Tupper she made an immediate impact on the not just the program but the school in general. These are the unsung leaders in the public school system that do so much and are seldom rewarded in the public. On the other hand, the reward from the friendships and the experiences they have shared with their players can’t be measured in dollars and cents. Congratulations to the entire team and coaches on an historic achievement!
This amazing!!! Congrats Coach Wong & team!!!!!!