It's not often that a team loses a basketball game by 46 points and still has reason to celebrate, but that's what happened last Saturday as the Elphinstone Cougars took the second-place trophy in the bantam girls' tournament.
The powerful Abbotsford Traditional Middle School Sabres, now 25-2 on the season, routed the Cougars 53-7 in the final of the six-team tournament, their second triumph over the Cougars that day.
While many of the tournament games were close, including Rockridge's 33-31 overtime win over Pender Harbour and Oceanview's 31-29 comeback win over Pender on Krissy Berg's basket with seven seconds left, all the games involving Abbotsford were blowouts.
The tall, fast and tenacious Sabres beat Chatelech Eagles 69-10 and the Sakinaws 66-9 before racing to a 27-0 lead over Elphi in the first of their two games with the Cougars before Elphi fought back to make the final score 56-19.
Chat captured third by beating Oceanview Orcas of Powell River 28-21, and Pender Harbour rebounded from two narrow losses to take fifth place with a 33-20 win over Rockridge.
All-stars for the Sunshine Coast teams were Zoe Schutz and Cheyenne Jankola of Chatelech and Dani Pazur of Pender.
Elphi played one of their best games of the season in the first game Friday, trouncing Rockridge 51-27. Starr Rairie with 17 points and Sage Buckman-Hubbard with eight led the scoring, with eight other players also contributing points.
In their late Friday game, strong team defence and a flurry of baskets by Hannah Smith and Samantha Iles-Highton carried the Cougars to a 34-20 victory.
Although Elphi and Chat were tied with 2-1 records after the round-robin, Elphi got to play in the championship game because they allowed fewer points in the three games.
In the championship game, the Cougars actually got on the board first, on a free throw by Hannah, but the Sabres soon went on a 23-0 run and coasted to an easy victory.
Two free throws by Arielle Vourtsis and a late basket by Megin Houle that broke a long scoring drought were about the only things the Cougars had to cheer about.
Hannah and Starr were named all-stars while Abbotsford placed three players on the all-star team, and 6-1 centre Nakisa Levale took the tournament MVP award.
"I had no idea that the Abbotsford team was that good when I invited them," said tournament director and Elphi coach Vern Giesbrecht. "Previous tournaments have been much closer, but it was inspiring, in a way, to watch girls at the bantam level play with such discipline and skill. I'm very proud of my players for refusing to quit when they were down 27-0 in the round-robin game. For brief periods they put pressure on Abbotsford, caused a few turnovers and made some good plays. I can't fault their effort."
-Submitted
