The Vernon Panthers conjured bronze medal magic and left the Duchess Park Condors with the fourth-place consolation prize at the BC triple-A girls basketball provincial championship Saturday in Langley.
The Panthers took off on a 9-0 run to gain a healthy advantage in the opening quarter then leaned on the scoring talents of Paige Leahy, Chloe Collins and Chloe Bicknell to build a 20-point halftime lead that paved the way to a 68-57 victory.
The Condors ended the game with 11 unanswered points but it was too little too late for Reid Roberts’s senior girls squad.
Leahy collected a game-high 24 points, while Collins contributed 16 for the bronze medalists. As she did throughout the tournament, Zhahra Ngabo led the Condor cause with 13 points, while Devyn Bjorn (12) and Maggie Malfair (10) also hit double figures.
As tough as it was to accept seeing their season end with a loss, the Condors certainly exceeded expectations getting to the medal round – a first for Roberts in his long history of coaching Prince George high school basketball teams.
“In the moment it’s disappointing, but when I reflect on it, it was absolutely amazing season for us,” said Roberts. “Sure you’d like to win that bronze medal and sure you’d like to win that last game. But man we had such an incredible season leading up to that and even down there (in Langley), we won our quarterfinal by three so that was a battle.”
The Condors lost their chance to advance to the championship game with a 56-53 loss to the Sa-Hali Sabres of Kamloops.
“We were only down one in that semifinal and we had a couple opportunities but we weren’t able to get a shot off so we had to foul to get a third opportunity and the girl hit the two free throws to go up three. With 10 seconds to go we were still able to get a shot at the hoop.
“We got it down to the wire and had them pretty panicked. We were right there with the number two team in the province, it’s a huge accomplishment”
Sa-Hali had to settle for silver after a 50-49 loss in the triple-A final Saturday to Mennonite Educational Institute Eagles of Abbotsford.
Saturday’s game marked the end of the high school careers of the Condors’ Grade 12s – Malfair, Mercedes Black, Naiha Manhas and Tehya Carpenter.
“This is the fourth year at provincials for the seniors and three of the Grade 11s,,” said Roberts. “The first year down there were there Grade 8s and a bunch of Grade 9s on the team and they finished last at junior provincials. Next year we finished 17th and maybe had one (provincial) win and last year we ended up 11th. So to go from last place in the Grade 9 year to fourth place in their senior year is a huge accomplishment for this team.”
Carpenter missed most of the season with a knee injury and retuned to limited action in the City League final and North Central zone tournament, helping her team win both titles. She started but didn’t play much at provincials, until the bronze medal game. Roberts told Carpenter he wanted her available to play the whole game and she was.
“I told her ‘you’re going to get lots of opportunity,’ and she played her heart out , it was so nice to see,” said Roberts. “She was diving on the floor, I know her dad (assistant coach Jacob Carpenter) who was sitting on the bench was so proud of her to see her in that moment, her last game of senior, she gave it everything she had.”
The College Heights Cougars lost 70-60 to Mark Isfeld Ice of Courtenay in the fifth-place playoff and finished sixth in the 16-team tournament.
Lorenn Caceres scored 32 points in that game for College Heights. Cougar senior Summer Toor had a 10-point game.
Caceres and Ngabo, the Condors’ Grade 10 point guard, were selected for the tournament’s second all-star team.
