Cat fight for 1A championship as No. 1 Bobcats battle No. 2 Blue Jags

South Kamloops Titans’ Kiana Kaczur and St. Michaels University School Blue Jags’ Alex Motherwell hit the deck in a battle for a loose ball during the BC School Sports 1A Girls Basketball Provincial Championships semi-finals on March 1 at Langley Events Centre. Vancouver Sports Pictures photo

The top two seeds are set to square off in the BC School Sports 3A Girls Basketball Provincial Championships on Saturday, with each winning in vastly different ways.

The Brookswood Bobcats were 73-51 winners over the Reynolds Roadrunners, while the St. Michaels University School Blue Jags needed a late free throw to prevail 55-54 over the South Kamloops Titans.

The top-seed Bobcats and the No. 2 Blue Jags will play on Centre Court on Saturday (March 2) at 6:15pm.

The first of the semi-finals saw Brookswood ride a dominant first half – they were up 45-18 after 20 minutes – and some great outside shooting as they made 14 three-pointers in a 73-51 win over Reynolds.

The Bobcats led by as many as 37 points in the game with Jordyn Nohr leading the way for the ‘Cats with 20 points, also adding four assists, three rebounds and three steals and Hazel Phillips chipped in with 16. Saige Parfitt (17 points) and Bella Graves (16) were the top scorers for the Roadrunners.

While the first game was won by double digits, the latter was decided by a single point as Charlie Anderson sank a free throw with 1.7 seconds remaining to snap a tie game and send the Blue Jags to 55-54 victory.

Anderson finished with 21 points and seven rebounds, to go along with three steals and a pair of assists.

The game kept seeing St. Michaels University School build a lead only for the Titans to storm back and despite having less than two seconds to work with, their attempt at a game-winner did not drop.

Avery Geddes added 20 points in the victory. For South Kamloops, Feron Wallace had a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds, Lucy Marchese added 16 Kiana Kaczur chipped in 14.