High schoolers tip- off in Langley
The B. C. Triple- A boys’ basketball championship got underway Tuesday in Langley. Sun reporter Mike Beamish shares the highlights of the four opening- round games at the LEC.
LANGLEY — After scoring 81 per cent of his team’s points in the opening game of the B. C. Triple- A high school boys basketball tournament, Andrew Lamb was not embarrassed by such an act of vanity. It’s expected of him. The 5- foot- 10, curly- topped guard from Cranbrook’s Mount Baker secondary had 38 points in the opening game Tuesday at Langley Events Centre, as the Wild lost by 53 — 100- 47 — to the Enver Creek Cougars of Surrey, only the sixth- ranked team from the always- tough Fraser Valley conference.
In other opening- round games, Terry Fox, the defending champion, defeated North Peace ( Fort St. John) 70- 45, Sir Winston Churchill ( Vancouver) got past Pitt Meadows 67- 64 in a battle of top- 10 contenders and Caledonia ( Terrace) won 59- 50 against Burnaby Mountain, making its first tournament appearance.
The Cougars badly wanted to hit triple figures against overmatched Mount Baker — and they did, when Indu Deivendran’s layup enabled Enver Creek to reach the century mark with 47 seconds left.
After the game, however, Phil Deeks, the Cougars’ coach, was far from satisfied.
“We weren’t under the pressure of a real tough opponent,” Deeks admitted. “That all ends tomorrow ( on Wednesday, Enver Creek plays White Rock Christian, one of the tournament favourites). The only thing we talked about today was No. 4 ( Lamb). It’s a little bit alarming that a guy could put up that many points against a team that was focused on shutting him down. We knew he was their guy.” As it was, Lamb probably could have scored 50, had he displayed better finish when driving to the basket.
“If I could improve anything about me, it would be my left hand,” Lamb admitted. “I often fall into the habit of just getting up the floor with my right hand, and going to my right. It would help if I could work better with both hands.”
Lamb took 27 shots from the field, put up nine three- point attempts and went to the freethrow line 20 times in the 36 minutes he played. A lot of those shots were frustratingly close to going in and didn’t. Still, without him, the Kootenay reps might have felt the same sting as Mount Baker’s senior girls squad, which lost 101- 18 to eventual champion South Kamloops last week in their Triple- A provincial tournament opener.
“It’s their job ( players) and my job as coach to put a good product on the floor,” said Cranbrook’s 21- year- old head coach Shaun Penner, who played for Mount Baker in the Triple- A tournament as recently as 2009. “You have to play for 40 minutes. I don’t care what the score is. We lost to MEI one year ( 9155) when I was playing, and one of the newspapers covering the tournament wrote ‘ Mount Baker still kept playing.’ That’s what we want to hear.”
Cranbrook has never been a strong centre for high school basketball in the province for a couple of reasons. The Wild receive an automatic bye to the tournament as the Kootenay rep, so players aren’t tournamenttested by the time they arrive for the provincials.
The creation of a fourth competitive tier for B. C. high school basketball — 4A, similar to Alberta — for the 201314 season will allow almost 20 per cent more participation at four separate provincial tournaments. But the revamped system offers no competitive respite for Mount Baker.
Because of school size, the Wild will move to up 4A and more mismatches could be a result, similar to Tuesday.
“A 53- point loss is no fun for us, and it’s no fun for the team we’re playing against,” Penner admitted. “It’s tough. We get questions asked if we should be here. Some years we put out a good program. Other years ... it’s like this.”
By comparison, the Fraser Valley is a crucible of intense competition. High school basketball matters. Players visualize the experience of winning, of students storming the court at LEC to celebrate a provincial title. But just getting to the B. C. tournament is an accomplishment in itself. “It’s so hard to get through the Fraser Valley,” Deeks said. “Our goal is just to get here.”
As one of only two Grade 12 players on a Mount Baker roster of nine, which includes two jayvees, Lamb’s job is to score liberally, make hustle plays frequently and provide a burst of energy every time he touches the ball. “Andrew plays a team game. It’s the rest of my guys that need to play a team game,” Penner said. “He’s a class act. He’s taken this team on his back, and worked with them. He’s a phenomenal leader.”
At no point does the coach direct the other starters to keep passing the ball to his star player, it just ends up that way. Lamb has been valiant in a season of recurring defeats, including a 107- 48 loss to the third- ranked team in Alberta, Bishop O’Byrne of Calgary, in which Lamb had 32 of his team’s points.