Condors land in fifth at provincials

One four-point loss.

That might have been all that prevented the Duchess Park Condors from making medal memories over the weekend at the double-A girls provincial high school basketball championship in Langley.

The Condors went 3-1 in the tournament, ending with an 85-62 win over Okanagan Mission Saturday morning to finish fifth, one place better than their ranking going into the 16-team event.

The only loss for Duchess Park came in the quarterfinal round Friday when they fell 68-64 to the G.W. Graham Grizzlies of Chilliwack, the eventual silver medalists, who were defeated in the final 73-67 by the South Kamloops Titans.

Duchess Park opened with a 39-32 win over Westsyde, then defeated Vernon 52-39.

“It was a total team effort, every player on every shift gave everything they had and we executed the small things really well and competed in every game,” said Condors head coach Louise Holmes.

“I’m so proud of the girls and how they put all the pieces together, which is what you want to do at the end of the season.

“We battled with (the Grizzlies) and made Deanna (Tuchscherer) work for every point she got. She’s a big five-foot-11 guard and she’s been identified by the national team program and she’s superb. She had 22 points against us, which is low for her.”

Their 23-point win in the fifth-place game over Okanagan Mission was sweet revenge for the Condors, who had lost by 15 in January to the same team. —

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Logan Cruz, a Grade 11 guard for the Condors, was named to the tournament honourable mention all-star list. For three senior Condors – guard Sidney Lopez, guard Rachel Holmes and forward Kayla Gregory – Saturday’s game marked the end of their high school basketball careers.

The Duchess Park junior A girls finished 15th in the 24-team provincial tournament, also played in Langley. The Condors finished with a 45-44 win over Windsor. Nechako Valley of Vanderhoof defeated PGSS 44-40 to place 22nd.