If you wander through the halls of Elphinstone Secondary School, you'll come upon a trophy case littered with plaques, trophies and framed photos that tell a rather short story of the school's past athletic prowess.
Walk in to the gymnasium and direct your eyes just below the yellow and black border that wraps around the beaten white brick walls, and you'll find a few more examples of the scattered success of Elphi's sports programs.
There are North Shore championship banners for volleyball, mountain biking, golf, cross-country and track and field but nothing to show for basketball. That all changed last week.
On Tuesday, Feb. 14, the Cougars junior boys defeated the Sutherland Sabres 42-33 at Suthlerland's home in North Vancouver to claim their first league championship since the school started competing in 1957.
It was quite satisfying, but more than that, it's something that's never been done, said assistant coach Denis Turenne. So to take that banner and have people look at it and see it in the school, it was a big deal. It meant a lot for the kids, because for two years they tried for that banner and it evaded them.
In both bantam and juvenile (grades 8 and 9), the same group of players finished third in the North Shore and was subsequently bounced out in the early rounds of the Vancouver and District (V&) Championship the qualifier for the B.C. provincial tournament.
Those were two tough years full of promise that yielded no plaques or medals or bright blue banners, but just left the Cougars feeling frustrated on each ferry ride home.
When asked if the players look at their accomplishment in the North Shore as just a stepping-stone to the big dance in March, Turenne was sure that the boys understand how important the feat is.
I think they're getting it, he said. They're starting to realize that this is a once in a lifetime significant thing, and I think they appreciate how difficult it really is, because in the last two years they came up short.
Six-foot-4 post Nate Haglund led the Cougars in scoring during the final against Sutherland with 17 points, and scored six of Elphi's final eight points in the fourth quarter. Guard Jackson Creelman was an assassin during the match, seeming to nail a three-pointer every time the Sabres managed to gain a little momentum; he ended with 14 on the night.
There have been times where Wei [Lau] has come up big, when Jackson has come up big, and really every player has come up big, Turenne said. We've got a great group of athletes and they've all bought in to our system and that depth is what's carried us to this point.
But this story doesn't have the happiest of endings. Exactly one week later on Tuesday, Feb. 21, the Cougars were stunned in the first round of the V&Ds, losing 57-55 to the New Westminster Secondary School Hyacks and ending their provincial hopes for the third straight campaign.
Head coach Shane Heuring, Turenne and all the players were visibly upset after the loss, but it was what Turenne said just hours before tipoff that resonated with what the team must have been feeling after the final buzzer.
As coaches, we always say to take one game at a time, but I'd be lying to you if I said that they wouldn't be disappointed if they didn't make it to the provincials, he said. Sure they're happy that they won the North Shore, but they want to go to provincials.
