Now that their annual coronation is official, the McMath Wildcats can focus on their big task next week in North Vancouver.
The Wildcats were crowned Richmond senior girls champions for the fifth consecutive year with an 82-37 win over the Hugh Boyd Trojans. It’s been some time since they have actually been tested by a city opponent and Wednesday night’s home court result extends their unbeaten run against Richmond teams to 41 games — dating back to the 2013-14 season.
McMath now turns its attention to the Crehan Cup Lower Mainland AAA Championships and trying to secure its fourth consecutive trip to the Langley Events Centre for the provincial tournament.
The girls have been seeded No. 1 for the 12-team event which tips-off on Saturday. The Wildcats will face the winner of Killarney/Burnaby Central on Tuesday and should advance to the semi-finals and a likely date with Vancouver champion and No. 4 seed Lord Byng.
Other contending teams include defending champion Argyle (No. 2), New West (No. 3) and Carson Graham (No. 5) which will be hosting the final three days of the tournament. McMath, Argyle, Carson Graham and New West were all listed as honourable mentions in the latest provincial rankings.
The Wildcats just hope their lack of a real test Richmond play won’t be a factor, although their performance Wednesday was encouraging.
“We should get to Thursday night and all of a sudden we haven’t played a real tough game in three weeks so we will see how we respond,” said Wildcats co-coach Chris Kennedy. “Even though it was one-sided tonight, we did a lot of things really well. Without playing our seniors a ton, we still had a really good night.”
McMath fourth-year standout Abby Zawada was named league MVP for the second straight season in her final game in the McMath gym.
The Richmond all-star teams are as follows:
First All-Star Team: Kirsten Abo (McNair), Rhamivir Dhaliwal (Cambie), Liz Kennedy (McMath), Martha Melaku (McMath) and Kara Moscovitz (Boyd).
Second All-Star Team: Binwant Atwa (McNair), Alice Liu (Boyd), Kate Muckle (Cambie), Emma Wassink (Richmond Christian) and Jayna Wilson (McMath).
Third All-Star Team: Sandra Balitann (Richmond High), Shir Dayan ( Steveston London), Alex Hart (Richmond Christian), Veronica Lin (McRoberts), Laurel Vint (McNair).
At the buzzer…
The Steveston-London Sharks are also at the Lower Mainland AAA tourney and will take on Carson Graham on Saturday.
Boyd and McNair both advance to the Lower Mainland AA Championships. The Trojans defeated McNair 74-55 Tuesday to earn the top Richmond seed and also advance to the city final.
