Teams from Hazelton, Prince Rupert, Terrace and Houston travelled to Smithers for a senior girls basketball play day last weekend.
The girls from BVCS exceeded expectations, finishing with a 3-1 record after notching convincing wins over Hazelton, Houston and Smithers Secondary.
“I thought our team played really well,” head coach Ron Van Driel said.
“We are starting to get better, which is good to see.”
The BVCS Royals next big tournament will take place in Valemount, against some of the best single-A teams in the province.
“It’s going to be a great tournament. We’re going to see some different teams that we haven’t seen yet.”
It will make for a good litmus test heading down stretch.
BVCS will play zones against Hazelton, Houston and possibly Haida Gwaii on Feb. 22. If they win the tournament, they’ll travel to Lumby for provincials, March 5 to 8.
The SSS senior girls have struggled out of the gate, but that’s nothing new for them.
The team usually starts practicing and heading to tournaments a little later in the season that most schools do.
Last season they started off slowly but peaked at the end of the year, beating teams they were losing to by double digits at the beginning of the season.
At the play day on the weekend, the SSS girls beat Houston and lost a tight game to Prince Rupert before going up against their crosstown rivals from BVCS. A bigger Royals squad dominated the paint en route to a decisive victory.
“I thought BVCS played really well, but it was a bit of a setback for us,” head coach Jim Cameron said.
“It’s a wake up call and now we know we have got a lot of work to do.”
The squad boasts a number of returnees from last year’s team that was comprised mainly of Grade 11 students, as such, Cameron is expecting an improvement over last season’s results, in spite of the slow start.
“I think, for us, it’s just composure and confidence and that’s a function of experience. We have good athletes, we just need to play more.”
Overall, Cameron sees a lot of potential with his team.
“We have very good guards, and we’ve got athleticism and quickness. We just need to make good decisions and we need to shoot the ball a lot better.”
The SSS senior girls will head to Prince George for their third tournament of the season in three weeks before gearing up for a zone matchup against Prince Rupert.
Because of changing school demographics, Caldedonia has left the double-A level, leaving Prince Rupert and Smithers Secondary to duke it out for a provincial spot.
No word yet on who will host the tournament.
