During volleyball season, the College Heights Cougars pounded their way to zone gold.
A couple weeks ago, some of the same players helped give the Cougars a city title in basketball.
On Saturday night, on their home court, the Cougars completed their quest for a "triple crown" when they beat the D.P. Todd Trojans 92-81 in the final game of the double-A boys north central zone championship tournament.
"Coming into this year, everyone -- coaches, P.E. staff and all the athletic players -- was thinking we wanted to get what we call a triple crown," said Grade 11 Cougars guard Nolan Hanson, who scored 27 points in Saturday's game and was selected as most valuable player of the five-team tournament. "We wanted to get three banners for our school. Our school has always been a second-place, third-place team in both sports -- volleyball and basketball. This year, we just kind of had enough and said, 'Hey, we're going for it.'"
Putting the final jewel in the crown wasn't easy. With about two minutes left to play, the Cougars and Trojans were tied 76-76. But Hanson, ever the clutch performer, knocked down a three-pointer and teammate Sam Goodrich followed that with a successful drive to the hoop. The Cougars were back into an 81-76 lead and didn't trail again. Down the stretch, when the Trojans were forced to foul to try to get the ball back quickly, the Cougars were perfect from the free throw line. Grade 12 guard Rajen Bhullar went six-for-six from the stripe and Goodrich went two-for-two.
Hanson's three-pointer was even more remarkable because he only had one good eye at the time he launched the shot. Early in the fourth quarter, he took an accidental elbow from teammate Joseph Beaman and suffered a cut on his nose and had his left eye swell partially shut.
"It just hurts to look left and right," Hanson said. "But it feels a lot better. All the parents came down and iced it and helped out. It's all worth it in the end."
The Trojans, who lost 80-71 to the Cougars in a Friday semifinal, would have had to beat College Heights twice to seize the zone title. Despite their gutsy performance on Saturday night, the Trojans couldn't keep up with the Cougars in the last two minutes.
"We had a couple [defensive] breakdowns and they hit some pretty tough shots," said Trojans forward Jai Kaushal, who scored 19 points in the game. He also made the tournament's first all-star team and was chosen as the top defensive player. "We knew it was going to be a good game. After the city finals [an 81-72 College Heights win] we were 2-2 against each other. We're pretty evenly-matched so it was just who was going to play harder was going to win the game."
The Trojans beat Columneetza of Williams Lake 89-74 earlier Saturday, a win that created the evening match-up with the Cougars.
As zone champions, the Cougars will now take shots in the provincial championship tournament, March 9-12 in Kamloops.
Other first-team all-stars at zones were Goodrich, Bhullar, Ethan Bhangu (D.P. Todd) and Manpreet Randhawa (Columneetza). Members of the second team were Matt Badial (College Heights), Harshdeep Banga (D.P. Todd), Josh Raphael (Duchess Park), Amanjot Kang (Columneetza) and Riley Wallace (Nechako Valley).
See Tuesday's Citizen for more high school basketball coverage.
