The Superball basketball tournament has been a long-standing tradition at Wellington Secondary School. Now the Wellington Wildcats are making it a tradition to win the tournament.
Welly’s teams swept to victory in their respective finals on Saturday, making it two years in a row that the ’Cats have won both the boys’ and girls’ brackets.
Wellington’s senior girls got to triple digits in a 105-23 win over Brentwood, then the Wildcats boys forced overtime and edged the Mark Isfeld Ice 64-62.
In the boys’ final, Wellington led 5-3 early in the first quarter but never led the game again until overtime. Brad Jenks hit a three-pointer with two and a half seconds left in the fourth quarter to tie the game 55-55.
He ended up with 21 points to lead Wellington and Tyler Radelja added 11.
“We knew we were better than this team but we just didn’t come out strong,” said Ethan Schulz, Wildcats forward. “They caught us off-guard by how hard they played. In the second half we got our heads in it.”
The girls’ final, meanwhile, was as lopsided as the score suggests. At one point in the game the Wellington girls went on a 40-0 run.
Victoria Brown and Mariah Van Sickle led the offence with 17 points each, Sara Simovic scored 16 and Montana Mjaaland added 13.
“We’re there to back each other up and work together to achieve it,” said Mjaaland. “[The tournament] is a lot of fun. It’s great to be able to impress some of your fans and parents, family and friends.”
Also having positive results at the Superball tournament were the Nanaimo District Islanders senior AA girls, who placed third. The team defeated Carihi 25-19 in Saturday’s third-place game in a defensive battle. Another notable win for the ND girls came against the Gulf Islands Scorpions, a 50-40 outcome. Natasha Jensen led the Isles in that game with 16 points and Maddy Dawson scored 14.
The Cedar Spartans and Dover Bay Dolphins competed in the senior boys’ brackets. Dover’s biggest win was a 95-34 thrashing of D.W. Poppy. Mike Pereira scored 23 points in that one, Wes Richardson scored 21 and Robbie Calvin added 16. Cedar also beat Poppy, winning 67-56. Justin Engevik’s 29 points led the Spartans.
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