The College Heights Cougars completed their senior girls basketball city championship three-peat.
They earned the right to hoist the trophy for the third straight year Tuesday night in a noisy gym at the Northern Sport Centre when they beat their crosstown rivals, the Duchess Park Condors 59-49.
Meanwhile, in the senior boys city championship that followed, the Prince George Polars defeated Duchess Park 65-54.
In the girls final, Temmie Bankole stoked the Cougar offence with a game-high 18 points, backed by a 12-point effort from Hailey Strand and Summer Toor’s 11-point outing.
Tahya Carpenter led all Condor shooters with 14 points, while Mercedes Black hit for 13 points and Zahra Ngabo netted 10 points.
College Heights Grade 11 point guard Lorren Caceres joined the senior team when she was in Grade 9 and she’s helped the Cougars bring home the banner every year.
“It’s hard to win three because Duchess has always been a good team,” said Caceres, among 10 players picked for the city girls all-star team.
“We haven’t had much competition for the past two years but they’re a young team and they double-team Summer and me a lot. It’s just good to have competition , it teaches our team to get better and pushes both teams to learn from our mistakes."
The Cougars built an 11-0 lead and held that 10 -point gap through much of the game. College Heights took a31-16 lead into the second half.
“It was super fun and the crowd was really fun, that was the best thing,” said Caceres.
“The key was to really hustle for the rebounds and just keep shooting our shots even if they’re not dropping. It helps the team bring our energy up and keep pushing forward.
“A lot of us have played together since we’ve been in elementary school, and young, and just putting in that work all the time and playing a lot has helped us. Next year will be tough but hopefully we can go for four.”
The Cougars are ranked sixth in the province among triple-A girls teams, while the Condors are ranked eighth.
Duchess Park is hosting the North Central zone tournament this week, which starts Thursday. If College Heights wins its 4 p.m. game against PGSS and Duchess defeats Dawson Creek in the 5:45 p.m. Thursday, the Cougars and Condors will meet again in the zone final Friday at 11:45 a.m.
Two berths are available for North Central for the provincial championship in Langley, Feb. 28-March 2.
Three other girls zone tournaments are being hosted in high school gyms in the city this week. D.P. Todd has double-A, Cedars Christian has single-A and Shas Ti/Kelly Road is hosting the junior girls championship.
In the boys city championship, the Polars shed their runner-up status from last year’s final, cruising to a nine-point victory over the Condors.
Harsh Cheema paced the Polars with 16 points, backed by Jules Tersago’s 13 points, while Kavan Varaich and Ethan Gilbert chipped in with 12 and 10 points respectively.
For Duchess Park, Anthony Lee had 16 points, Traye Barthe had 15, Josh Tamblyn had 12 and Jake Bilbrough also reached double figures with 10 points.
The Polars led 18-12 after one quarter, 36-31 at the half and 57-40 heading into the fourth quarter.
The boys zone tournaments are scheduled for Feb. 23-25.
Girls City All-Stars 2024
Lorenn Caceres, College Heights
Zahra Ngabo, Duchess Park
Temmie Bankole, College Heights
Amy Larson, Cedars Christian
Summer Toor, College Heights
Magdalena Malfair, Duchess Park
Mercedes Black, Duchess Park
Kayleigh Kennedy, College Heights
Tehya Carpenter, Duchess Park
Maria Sampson, Shas Ti/Kelly Road
Boys City All Stars 2024
Kavan Varaich, PGSS
Ethan Gilbert, PGSS
Traye Barthe, DPSS
Jules Tersago, PGSS
Gage Cooke, PGSS
Jacob Mclean, CHSS
Tolu Bankole, CHSS
Ryan Crosina, Cedars
Matty Hart, DPSS
Harsh Cheema, PGSS
