Cavaliers crowned champions after defeating Brentwood College

The message was received on the very first day.

Facing the 14-seed Khalsa School Lions on day one of the BC School Sports 2A Boys Basketball Provincial Championships, the No. 3 Collingwood Cavaliers were pushed to the limit before scoring eight of the final nine points to secure a 77-69 win.

That set the tone for a tough four-day stretch which saw the Cavaliers win by single digits in three of those games, including Saturday night at Langley Events Centre as Collingwood secured their first provincial 2A title since 2016 with a 71-64 win over Mill Bay’s Brentwood College.

“We have some tough losses and I think our first game this week set the tone for how hard this was going to be,” explained Collingwood assistant coach Teresa Ross. “We knew we just had to keep going and going. Just super proud of these kids.”

The Cavaliers led by as many as seven points in the first half and took a three-point lead to the locker room, before maintaining control over the final 20 minutes as their opponent could never get the deficit below six points.

“We just stuck with the game plan. We scouted ahead and knew what we wanted to do. We knew we had to be locked in,” Ross said.

Also helping the Cavaliers maintain that lead was a dominant presence in the paint as the team combined for 10 blocked shots, with both 6-5 forward Logan Albiani and 6-8 forward Avi Barha swatting four each. With that duo patrolling the paint at one end of the floor, guards Cy Bosa (22 points) and Finnegan Murphy (20) combined for 42 points. Murphy was especially lethal from distance, draining five of his eight 3-point attempts. Murphy would be named the Championship Player of the Game.

For Brentwood College – which was a provincial finalist for a second straight year – Milan Pasquale had 16 points and Julian Bishop added 15.

The Cavaliers’ James Holm (eight points, eight rebounds, four assists and two steals) would be named the Most Valuable Player of the tournament with Brentwood College’s Taylor Edwards earning the Best Defensive Player honours.

Earning First Team All-Star awards were Pasquale (Brentwood College), Darko Karac (King George), Jaden Mesfin (Pacific Academy), Willem Van Huizen (Langley Christian) and Blake Pye (Lambrick Park).

The Second Team All-Stars were Bosa, Cason Scott (Westsyde), Jonny Durkan (John Barsby), Amir Mojarradi (Collingwood) and Nathan Chiang (Pacific Academy).

Nanaimo’s John Barsby Bulldogs would earn the Most Sportsmanlike Team award and in the bronze medal game, it was Pacific Academy defeating Langley Christian 70-60.