Girls’ city final could be clash of the titans
Oak Bay, Claremont among eight teams battling for berths to AAA Islands
What began with a play-in game on Tuesday is expected to culminate with a spectacular clash on Saturday night as the senior girls’ Lower Island triple-A basketball championship hits the sparkling new floor at Belmont Secondary in Langford.
The Oak Bay Breakers and Claremont Spartans have firstround byes and are likely set for collision-course in the championship final after recording 6-0 and 5-1 regular-season records, respectively.
That’s if this city championship tournament goes to form, which is very much expected this season.
“Unless something weird happens,” said Claremont assistant coach Darren Reisig, whose Spartans’ only loss was a 71-68 setback to Oak Bay. “We were actually ahead for most of that game, but they got us in the last two minutes.”
Both teams had their way with the remainder of the field during the season, the Breakers finishing plus-224 in point differential while the Spartans were plus-187. Oak Bay is ranked No. 7 in the province while Claremont is No. 10.
They are two very different teams.
“We are very evenly matched up. We do it in opposite ways this year,” Oak Bay coach Rob Kinnear said of his young, but talented, charges. “We’re big and want to turn it into a half-court game and try to bang it down low. They’re lightning quick at every spot. They’re really young, too, but led by Calli [McMillan-Beaucamp], who is a Grade 12 star.
“They want to push the pace, pick you up at full court, turn you over and get out and run,” he said of the Spartans. “We want to do the opposite — get the ball in the half court and try to let our size do the work for us.” Reisig very much concurred. “We couldn’t be more opposite. They’re just not bigger, they’re huge,” Reisig said of the Breakers, who start four players at sixfeet or taller. “They’re a big, strong team and we’re smaller and quicker, which makes for an interesting matchup.”
The city championship began Tuesday as Stelly’s defeated Reynolds 40-15 in the play-in game, so the Stingers will face No. 3 Mount Douglas tonight at 7:15 p.m., just after host, and No. 5 Belmont, meets No. 4 Spectrum.
Claremont awaits the Stelly’s-vs. -Mount Douglas winner on Friday at 7:15 p.m. after Oak Bay meets the Belmont-vs.-Spectrum victor at 5:45 p.m.
The championship game tips off at 6 p.m. on Saturday and the third-place game is set for 4:30 p.m. The top four placements will head to Claremont for the Island finals the following week and the fifthplace finisher can challenge the North’s No. 4 for entrance into that tournament, which is slated for Feb. 18-20.
Kinnear is comfortable with the team he takes in which includes incredibly talented Sophie de Goede.
“I’m as comfortable as you can be with high school sports,” he said with a chuckle. “You never really know. I joke that it’s not game-to-game where sometimes I’m confused about which team I’m coaching, but quarter-to-quarter. We’re a super young team — extremely talented and athletic. I’m very blessed with the athletes I have, but we are very young so our performance goes up and down.”
The double-A tournament begins today at Lambrick Park with eight teams competing and four advancing to Islands at Wellington next week. The host Pride are joined by Pacific Christian and St. Michaels University School, which are both ranked in B.C. Parkland, Edward Milne, Gulf Islands, Shawnigan and Brentwood are also competing.
Games start today at 2 p.m. and continue through to the final on Saturday at 4 p.m.