It was one of the most uneventful Crehan Cup championship games in recent memory and the McMath Wildcats weren’t offering any apologies.
The province’s No. 2 ranked senior girls basketball team capped a dominating week against the Lower Mainland’s best with a 94-63 victory over the New West Hyacks on Saturday night. It marked the first time a Richmond school has won the Crehan Cup since 1999.
A year ago, the Wildcats were handed a stinging 60-58 defeat by the Handsworth Royals in the same game. They allowed an 11-point halftime lead slip away and the young squad vowed they would learn from the result moving forward.
Only three teams were expected to be their way this time. New West, Churchill and the defending champion Royals all have honourable mention status in the latest provincial AAA rankings. The Wildcats promptly took care of Churchill in the semi-finals on home floor, overcoming a slow start by their standards to defeat the Vancouver school 72-39.
Even though the opportunity to host the championship game was lost when the McMath gym was inadvertently double-booked, the Wildcats looked right at home at Churchill, racing out to a 29-point halftime lead and cruising the rest of the way.
Coaches Anne Gillrie-Carre and Paul Jones even used the third quarter to “work on some things that have been giving us some difficulty” in preparation for the upcoming provincials. How often has that happened in a Lower Mainland final?
For Gillrie-Carre it was another milestone in her remarkable coaching career that spans over 40 years and includes guiding three different schools to provincial tournament berths.
“It’s all about (playing) Saturday night and that’s what we have been reminding the girls since the start of the season,” beamed Gillrie-Carre. “It’s our school’s first-ever Lower Mainland banner so that makes it special too. They are an amazing group of girls to coach and they make our job so easy.”
The Wildcats were expected to dominate the 12-team tournament and they did just that, winning their three games by an average margin of 51 points. They can light-up opponents with their half-court offence and are equally dangerous in transition thanks to an athletic group that loves to run the floor and can cause havoc with full court pressure.
SFU-bound guard Jessica Jones secured MVP honours with another superb performance, scoring 23 points. She had 30 two nights earlier in the semi-finals.
Grade 12 teammates Jessica Zawada and Bobbi-Jo Colburn were named First Team All-Stars. Colburn had a monster championship game with 40 points, including 10 of 13 from the free throw line. Zawada had 16 against Churchill.
Justine McAskill and Lyric Custodio round out the starting five. Custodio had 17 in the final. The rotation also includes Hannah Partridge, Abby Zawada, Maraha Gibson-Zeinoun and Elizabeth Kennedy.
The program will continue to be a force for the next few years at least with Custodio and Abby Zawada in Grade 10, while Kennedy is only in Grade 8.
“This was something we had to do to get where we want to go,” said Paul Jones. “But every tournament we have been in, we always try to remind the girls how special it is to be playing (in a championship game) on a Saturday night.”
The Wildcats are hoping there is still one more Saturday Night Special on their schedule and that would be the provincial title game on March 5 at the Langley Events Centre.
They have earned the No. 2 seed for the 16-team tournament and will open play next Wednesday at 8:45 p.m. against Mt.Baker. A win would put them up against No. 7 Abbotsford or No. 10 New West in the quarter-finals. Their bracket also includes No. 3 Lord Tweedsmuir and No. 6 Riverside.
