The Duchess Park Condors begin their quest for the North Central zone triple-A zone boys basketball championship tonight at 7 p.m. at Correlieu Secondary School in Quesnel and are heavily favoured to claim the first of two provincial berths available.
Ranked No. 3 in the province, the Condors are defending triple-A provincial silver medalists from 2020, the last time the B.C. tournament was played before the pandemic hit.
Duchess Park, the top seed in the five-team zone tournament, opens tonight against the winner of the 2:45 p.m. game between No. 4 Correlieu Coyotes and No. 5 Dawson Creek Penguins.
If the Condors win that game as expected, they’ll play the winner of the Thursday 4:30 p.m. game between No. 2 College Heights Cougars-No. 3 Lake City Falcons of Williams Lake.
The ban on tournament play cancelled games and kept the Condors grounded over the past two months. They haven’t played a significant game since Feb. 10, when they beat the Cedars Christian Eagles 83-64 to win the City League title.
“We’ve just gone through our normal (practice schedule) leading up to this weekend and we expect to do well,” sad Yu. “We’re not taking anything for granted. Our mindset is to approach this weekend to find ways to ourselves to really improve and clean some things up on our end.
“There are always goals you can set forth before the game. All the teams that I’ve coached always have a 15-points-or-less per quarter rule that we want to give up and we might challenge ourselves and even go 10-points-or-less a quarter. We’re really going to focus on the defensive end and take away the middle and no second chances and play tight games. If we can do that, we’ll be pretty successful.”
College Heights is the only team of the four zone opponents the Condors have faced this season and the closest margin of victory for Duchess Park against the Cougars was 21 points.
“They’ve had some good quarters against them and they have some strong players, Bobby Kelly, obviously, and Jacob Fraser and Troy Todoruk, you can’t take them lightly. Guarev Bains had a 60-point game recently this last month, which very seldom happens in high school sports.
“We’re expecting, and hoping, to see them in the final. I want a good game from them. I want them to be playing their best at the right time and I want us to be playing our best at the right time.”
The zone final is scheduled for Saturday at 6 p.m.
The two North Central zone teams will advance to the triple-A provincial championship, March 2-5 in Langley.
Two other North Central zone boys tournaments are happening this weekend, both in Prince George.
The Cedars Christian Eagles, ranked No. 4 in B.C., are the top seed in the 11-team single-A boys championship at the Roll-A-Done and College of New Caledonia.
At 6 p.m., Cedars will face the winner of today’s noon game between Mountain Christian and Chetwynd.
The Westside Academy Warriors of Prince George, ranked No. 11 in B.C., started their zone tournament today at 1 p.m. against the winner of the morning game between Northside Christian and Acwsalcta.
The tournament venue switches to the College of New Caledonia gym for all games Friday and Saturday. The championship game is scheduled for Saturday at 5 p.m.
Meanwhile, the Shas Ti Kelly Road Grizzlies host the four-team double-A boys tournament, starting Friday.
The host Grizzlies are seeded No. 2 and they’ll face the No. 3 D.P. Todd Trojans in the tournament opener Friday at 9 a.m. The top-seeded Nechako Valley Vikes face No. 4 Peter Skene Ogden of 100 Mile House, Friday at 10:45 a.m. The winners meet in a semifinal Friday at 5:45 p.m.
The first final is scheduled for Saturday at 3:45. A second final, in necessary, will be played Sunday at 10 a.m.
Saturday marks the start of the 32-team junior A boys provincial championship in Langley and the Duchess Park Condors are seeded 13th.
Fresh from their upset win over the Prince George Polars a couple weeks ago in the North Central zone championship, the Condors will take on No. 20 Brookswood in their first game Saturday at 10 a.m. The winner of that game will play the winner f No. 4 Lord Byng versus No. 29 Caledonia Saturday at 5:30 p.m.
The No. 26 Polars tip off at 1 p.m. against No. 7 Kelowna. The winner moves on to play the winner of the No. 10 Handsworth versus No, 23 Elgin Park/St. Patrick in a 7 p.m. Saturday playoff.
The junior A boys championship is scheduled for Tuesday at 7 p.m.
