If there is one sport associated with this month above all others, it is basketball. Let the madness of March begin. The top girls high school teams in the province descend on the Langley Events Centre today through Saturday for the B.C. championships, followed by the boys next week.
It’s been a long time between dances for Brentwood College in girls’ hoops. The Mill Bay school is best known in sports for producing Olympic medallists in rowing and World Cup players in rugby. But coach Blake Gage’s Brentwood College boys’ basketball squad has really come on in the past decade to make a name for itself. Now it’s the turn of the Brentwood College girls’ team, which is making its first B.C. tournament appearance in who knows how long. It can’t be said this is Brentwood College’s first girls’ appearance in provincials, there is some vague remembrance of an appearance in the 1980s, but nobody at the school is sure after going through records. Let’s just say it’s been a long time, if ever.
Another Island drought will end today when the Alberni Armada in 3A makes its first B.C. championship showing in girls’ basketball since 1987, according to Varsity Letters.
Brentwood College, meanwhile, earned its 2A berth by placing second to the St. Michaels University School Blue Jags in the Island championship and opens today as the 10th seed in the provincial tournament against No. 7 Southridge of Surrey while No. 5 SMUS, led by forward Makena Anderson, plays the No. 10 Collingwood Cavaliers of West Vancouver. The third 2A Island team, No. 11-ranked Lambrick Park Pride, opens today against No. 6 Kalamalka of Coldstream.
“Whether it’s our first time, or whether it was done once before, this is quite historical for us,” said Brentwood College girls’ team head coach Jill Napier.
And it doesn’t appear to be a one-off for a team that loses only two Grade 12 players.
“What we do know is that when these players were younger, they made the junior high provincial tournament for the first time in school history,” said Napier.
“This group has come up together since Grade 8 with this goal in mind. With so many Grade 11s on our team, next year might be the big year for us, while this year’s B.C. tournament is going to be a huge learning experience for our players and we will be digging deep.”
Many of the Brentwood College players are all-rounders with four of the five starters also on the school’s volleyball team. Of the starters, three are B.C. team level in several sports — Miranda Navarro Perez in the provincial basketball program, Jensa Napier-Ganley in the provincial soccer program and Jocie Lenarcic in B.C. volleyball.
“We are heavy into multi-sport athletes at our school,” said Napier, herself a U Sports basketball player at Sir Wilfred Laurier and also varsity in rowing and rugby at Brock University.
From water to field to court, it goes with the territory at Brentwood College.
Another key player for Brentwood College, one of the few schools without a nickname for its sports teams, is Ona Garrigos Pages.
Meanwhile, the Island-champion and B.C. No. 9 Claremont Spartans open the 4A provincial high school girls’ tournament today at the LEC against the No. 8 Kelowna Owls. The Spartans are led by Island tournament MVP Adia Pye and all-rounder Olivia Boulding, a Canadian junior national team volleyball player headed to NCAA Div. 1 University of Montana in that sport. The No. 16 Belmont Bulldogs will be looking for the upset special this morning against the top-ranked Riverside Rapids of Port Coquitlam.
It’s gratifying just to be back on-court after a dark year.
“It feels great to be heading to the LEC and to play off the Island for the first time in nearly two years,” said Claremont coach Darren Reisig.
In the B.C. 3A girls’ championship tournament, drought-busting No. 11 Alberni District opens today against the No. 6 Sa-Hali Sabres of Kamloops, while the No. 16 Carihi Tyees of Campbell River will look to play giant killer against top-ranked Burnaby South.
