The Steveston-London Sharks are headed back to the B.C. “AAA” Boys Basketball Championships, just not with all the momentum they were hoping for.
The Sharks settled for second place at the Lower Mainland Championships after falling 101-92 to the Byrne Creek Bulldogs on Friday night at the Richmond Olympic Oval. They at least will have an opportunity to ease the memory of last season’s heartbreaking defeat in the provincial final. That was hardly a given a month ago and Steveston-London’s late season resurgence places them among the favourites at the Langley Events Centre next week.
“I thought we were hitting our peak but now we got a week to figure everything out,” said Sharks head coach Mike Stoneburgh. “We will still be among the top five or six seeds and just need to go out and play.”
The Bulldogs might just be the most athletic team in the province at any tier. Led by Grade 10 star Bithow Wan, they play at a blistering tempo with plenty of full court pressure. It caused the Richmond champions all kinds of trouble in the opening half. They headed into the third quarter down 51-38, before beginning to chip away at the deficit, led by the dominating post play of Fardaws Aimaq. He solidifed his second straight Lower Mainland MVP honours, finishing the night with 38 points.
By the start of the final 10 minutes, Byrne Creek’s lead was down to 67-66 and the teams exchanged baskets for much of the fourth quarter. It was tied at 83-83 with 2:50 remaining when the Bulldogs’ pressure got to the Sharks again. They rolled off eight unanswered points and kept their foot on the gas pedal to the very end, producing 18 points in less than three minutes.
Steveston-London finished the game without all-stars Zach Cantwell and Isaiah Hunter who both fouled out. Cantwell left early in the fourth quarter and was his team’s second leading scorer with 14 points. Still, nothing bothers Stoneburgh more than self-inflicted wounds.
“I told them before the game they were going to go. They are going to push the tempo and they are going to leak out. It was going to be frustrating for them but they had to fight through it,” said Stoneburgh. “The first half we played like we did in December and January and the second half was mostly how we played the rest of the season and playoffs. There were just too many turnovers at key points of the game. That’s the frustrating part.
“They are super-talented and they can go very far. But play like they did in the first half and we won’t be going anywhere.”
In the end, the tournament committee was bang with their seeding and that was bad news for Richmond’s other three teams looking to earn B.C. berths.
Four of the top five seeds ended up with the B.C. berths. The only exception was the McMath Wildcats thanks mainly to their one point loss to Steveston-London in the quarter-finals. They still had a chance to go to Langley but fell to Lord Byng in a do-or-die scenario, as did the McNair Marlins to St. Thomas More.
McMath’s Bryce Mason joined Hunter on the second all-star team. Cantwell was a first team selection.
The Lower Mainland “AA” runner-up Cambie Crusaders are also headed to provincials next week. Kevin Dhillon and Kyle Kondola were named tournament all-stars.
