SENIOR GIRLS 2A FINAL SET: NO. 1 LANGLEY CHRISTIAN TO FACE NO. 2 BRITANNIA IN CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL

A basket at the buzzer would have forced overtime but was fractions of a second too late sending one team into jubilation and the other into tears.

The Britannia Bruins were the ones celebrating as the Vancouver squad showed great resiliency in battling back from a 14-point third quarter deficit for the 75-73 victory which sends them to the BC Secondary School 2A Girls Championship game.

The second-seed Bruins battled the No. 6 St. Thomas Aquinas Fighting Saints from North Vancouver in the first of the two semi-final games on Friday at Langley Events Centre.

The Saints’ Gemma Cutler’s put-back could not beat the final buzzer, relegating the team to the bronze medal game for a second consecutive year as they look to improve upon their fourth-place finish.

The Bruins will play for their first provincial title since winning it all in 2012.

And it was the play of their dynamic duo which helped them get there.

Shemaiah Abatayo and Surprise Munie combined to score 38 of their team’s 39 second-half points. Abatayo finished with 35, 11 rebounds, four assists and four steals. Munie had 27 points, eight rebounds and five steals.

The Bruins were down 14 early in the third quarter and only led for 5:08 of the 40-minute game and never by more than two points

“I told them 10 points was nothing in this game because we have girls that can shoot the threes,” said Britannia coach Mike Evans.

And that is exactly what happened as Abatayo hit five triples in the second half alone and finished the game by draining eight of her 17 attempts. But it was also more than just her accuracy from long distance as the incoming Trinity Western University recruit calmly controlled her team.

“Shemaiah was unbelievable, the way she controlled the pace. She has such great anticipation, the deflections, the tips that she got. The occasion doesn’t really bother her in a lot of ways,” Evans said.

For the Fighting Saints, their inside game of six-foot-two post player Jessica Clarke and the six-foot Cutler proved too be a tough load to handle for Britannia. Clarke scored 31 points and grabbed 16 rebounds while also blocking three shots and Cutler had 21 points and 20 rebounds as St. Thomas Aquinas held a 45-30 advantage on the boards. The team also received 14 points from guard Caelan Prescott, primarily from beyond the arc as she sank four three-pointers.

Britannia’s championship final opponent will be the Langley Christian Lightning, the top seed for the tournament. The game is set for 12:30 p.m. on Saturday (February 29).

After a free throw to open the second half cut Langley Christian’s lead down to two points over the No. 5 York House Tigers, the Lightning were dominant, outscoring the Tigers 17-4 to pull away.

Over the game’s final 20 minutes, Langley Christian outscored York House 40-13 for a 71-41 final score, setting the Lightning up in their first-ever 2A championship game.

The team (which has the enrolment for 1A) has won a title at that level but since electing to move up a tier, has not looked out of place, registering a third-place finish at provincials in both 2017 and 2019.

Six players from last year’s third-place team are back but head coach Danielle Gardner said the pain of losing in the semi-final in 2019 was not even discussed.

With her team in a tight game at the half (they won their first two games by an average of 73 points) the message was simple.

“We are up and we haven’t played the way we can play yet,” she said. “Give York House a ton of credit – they came out and battled with us. They played us tough (but) we just settled in and were able to hit some shots.”

Sydney Bradshaw scored 20 points and grabbed 15 rebounds while Makenna Gardner had 19 points, seven assists and seven rebounds for the Lightning. Nadeen Wu scored 19 to lead the Tigers while Finley Butler had 12 points.