For the second straight year, the Oak Bay Bays senior boys finished in the top eight at the 4A B.C. High School Basketball Championships.
Out of four games the Bays won two, lost two and finished sixth overall while the Claremont Spartans of Cordova Bay finished next at seventh. Last year, the Bays finished seventh.
Graduating Oak Bay guard Jaime Molins was named the Most Inspirational Player of the tournament and grade 11 Lucas Maffia was named to the second all-star team.
Molins had a strong tournament, and almost had a triple-double in the third game (a win over Abbotsford) when he grabbed 10 rebounds, had 13 assists, and scored eight points.
“[Molins] is a really fun player to watch, a really good passer with lots of energy,” said Maffia, who didn’t think he would earn an all-star nod having finished sixth. “[Molins] is always helping guys out when they’re down, and of course, he came back from a broken leg to start the year, which was impressive.”
READ MORE: Oak Bay wins Vancouver Island basketball championships
Molins scored a layup with less than a second left as Oak Bay opened the tournament on Wednesday beating Tamanawis 81-79. That put Oak Bay in the Elite 8. Claremont, with a 69-67 win over Holy Cross, also joined the Elite 8.
It pitted Oak Bay against the eventual winners, Burnaby South, who entered the tournament as the number one ranked team going into provincials. Burnaby South won 89-49.
Maffia hit four three-pointers in the loss, leading the Bays with 20 points.
The Bays bounced back with a 77-56 win over Abbotsford and advanced to the fifth/sixth place game, where Centennial of Coquitlam (the number two ranked team entering the tournament) defeated Oak Bay 78-66. Maffia scored another 29 points in the win over Abbotsford and 20 in the loss to Centennial, leading the way in both games.
READ ALSO: Final eight square off in B.C. High School boys basketball tournament
For Maffia, there were many positives the team took as their only losses were against the number one and number two ranked teams.
“We felt pretty good how we ended up doing, we only had two grade 12s and three returning players, so this was a new experience for a lot of guys,” Maffia said.
The team will return its two grade 9 players, Griffin Arnatt and Matthew Magnan, who played substantially at the provincial level as under-agers.
With the experience from this year, the team believes it can improve even more next year.
“The goal next year is to win Islands and get back, win that first game and go from there,” Maffia said. “But we all think we can get top-4 next year.
To qualify, the Bays won their sixth straight Island championship, the 25th in their history at the 3A and 4A levels.
Jaimie Molins 65-foot driving lay-in with 0.3 seconds left lifts Oak Bay past Tammy and into the 4A Elite 8! https://t.co/q1yAS2icOR @maffiawendylee @langleyevents @bc4aboysbball @bcboysbball @tamanawisbball @BCHoopScoop @GuyMacPherson pic.twitter.com/a3bwGobZaw
— Howard Tsumura (@htsumura) March 4, 2020
