LANGLEY — You have, of course, heard all about the phrase ‘trust the process’.
In sport, it translates to an utter belief that at the right time, all of the discipline and work expended over the course of the season will manifest itself in a team playing to height of its powers at just the right time.
Ask Lloyd Scrubb about the valleys endured by Vancouver College, and the longtime head coach stays so even-keeled in his response that it seems no wonder that has February has given way to March, the Fighting Irish are looking decidedly half-full and not the other way around.
Back in early January, at the Terry Fox Legal Beagle invitational in PoCo, Vancouver College wasn’t exactly hinting that it would be repeating as Lower Mainland champs in about six weeks time.
The Irish lost back-to-back-to-back games at the Beagle to Semiahmoo, Kelowna and AAA toughie South Kamloops.
So what’s led to the turnaround?
“It’s just been time,” Scrubb said after his No. 5 seeded team took a 20-minute shoot on the court Tuesday at the LEC to prepare for its high noon clash Wednesday with the No. 11 seed Terry Fox Ravens. “There is no point winning at the beginning of the season, so we try to play lots of guys, and through that, the kids gradually get better. It’s not magic. It’s just experience and playing together. Hopefully, if you do it right, you should get better.”
And Scrubb also knows how good the field is here this week at B.C.’s largest tier.
If two years ago there was one team, Kelowna, and last year a small handful, Scrubb says that “this year there might be five or six teams that could win it all. When the draw came out, and I mean no disrespect, but there maybe two games that wouldn’t be competitive. But for the rest, there is a chance for the lower seeded team to win.”
And of course with that statement, Scrubb knows that the Ravens, while young, will be a very tough out.
His own team is coming off a 2-1 edge in games against arch-rival St. George’s, including a victory in the Mainland final two Fridays ago. And those three games do more to prepare both teams for the rigours of a B.C. tourney than anything else in their respective campaigns.
With Jack Cruz-Dumont, Cam Wright, Levi Dvorak and Callum Chow-White among its core of standouts, March it seems, has arrived as the Irish always knew it would.
That is indeed, trusting in the process.
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