With a provincial heavyweight on the horizon, the Steveston-London Sharks have put themselves in position to capture one more Richmond Senior Girls Basketball League championship.
After last season's memorable run to the school's first-ever provincial tournament berth, the Sharks were expected to take a step back minus a number of graduates, including University of Calgary bound Anmol Mattu. What veteran coach Les Hamaguchi did have was talented Grade 11 guard Aliya Prasad and a hard working supporting cast that have surprisingly gone unbeaten in league play.
The Sharks clinched first place with a 58-44 win over the McMath Wildcats, making them the No. 1 seed for next week's city championships at MacNeill. Yet, Hamaguchi warns the tournament is wide open with as many as four teams capable of taking top honours.
Steveston-London squeaked out a 55-53 win over the second place Hugh Boyd Trojans back in early December and also had their hands full in a 54-51 victory over MacNeill a week later. It sets up an
intriguing post-season before McMath is expected to dominate for the next two years. The Wildcats' junior girls team is currently ranked No. 1 in the province.
"We have a crack at winning another Richmond championship and that's our big deal (this season)," said Hamaguchi. "The playoffs are shaping up to be very exciting. Teams one through five are very close. It comes down to whomever has a good week.
"It's great to be undefeated but lose the first game of the playoffs and it doesn't matter."
The Sharks relied on the perimeter shooting of Prasad and Emily Ip to build up a comfortable lead against the Wildcats before coasting down the stretch.
Prasad, who finished the night with six three-pointers, also has the ability to break down full court pressure on her own - a huge asset, especially when protecting a lead.
"One of the reasons she is so exceptional is she has tremendous ball skills," added Hamaguchi. "As a coach. that's what inspiring kids who want to be good in basketball need to know. To me, the most important thing to have is offensive skills.
"Sometimes I have taken it for granted but I have been lucky the last five or six years to have kids who are essentially one man press breaks. It's an amazing outlet to go."
"The last few years we have also developed an offence where we are firing up a lot of threes. It's a demoralizing thing to be playing really good defence for 15 seconds then give one of those up."
