Round two of a Fraser Valley Southwest league rivalry has gone to the White Rock Christian Academy Warriors.
The South Surrey school lived up to their provincial ranking (No. 2) in Senior AAA boys high school basketball by outlasting the fifth-ranked Tamanawis Wildcats 89-70 Saturday night in the championship game of the Surrey RCMP Classic before roughly 500 spectators at Enver Creek Secondary.
It was the 11th RCMP championship for the Warriors, who won in a rematch of last year’s final won by Tamanawis 68-66 in overtime.
“Today, whether we won or lost, we just wanted to play well,” said Tamanawis coach Mike McKay after the game. “And we didn’t play well. And that’s kind of upsetting for us right now.”
It was a much anticipated final between two teams that are battling for the Southwest championship in league play, and while the tournament means nothing in deciding league champions and participants in the Fraser Valley Championship tournament next month, it does mean a lot to the 23 teams who played in the 22nd annual all-Surrey competition.
“It’s the Surrey city championship,” summed up WRCA head coach Dale Shury.
Both teams went on the attack early Saturday night, trading the lead 11 times in the opening quarter which ended with the Wildcats holding a slim 22-21 advantage. The second quarter was close for the first few minutes, but a 12-4 run by WRCA to end the period put them on top 51-39 at half time.
Tamanawis did get to within six points midway through the third quarter, but four consecutive buckets by the Warriors helped them build a 14-point lead, a margin that remind above double digits the rest of the way.
Shury said lessons learned in a 90-88 loss in league play to Tamanawis at White Rock Christian Academy contributed to Saturday’s win.
“When you score 88 point in a basketball game, you’ve scored enough to win. We just didn’t stop them,” said Shur. “That was the difference in this game. We were swapping buckets with them for the first part of the game, but when we buckled down and started playing defense, that’s when it changed.
“It wasn’t anything by design, the guys just made a commitment to play tougher D.”
Tournament MVP Tyus Allen paced the Warriors with a gamephigh 32 points, with Vartan Tanielian adding 23. Matt Perrin with 13 points and Peter Spangehl with a dozen also scored in double figures.
Sukhjot Bains topped Tamanawis scorers with 26 points, only nine of which came in the second half. Parmvir Bains added 17.
“Today, I’m sure they (WRCA) had almost 30 offensive rebounds and that really wears on you because we like to get out and run,” said McKay. “When we’re giving o-boards like that and they’re getting second-chance points, we just can’t run.”
Enver Creek defeated the Panthers 75-70 in the third place game. Game Stars were Gurkirat Kular of the Cougars and Bradyn Norris of Lord Tweedsmuir.
