The AA Britannia Bruins girls won’t be bringing home a provincial banner this season after a 51-62 loss to the Duchess Park Condors on Wednesday night at the Langley Event Centre.
The best the Bruins can hope for now at the 2014 B.C. Secondary Schools Girls AA Basketball Championships is ninth place.
The deck was stacked in the Condors’ favour before the first buzzer.
The Condors, fifth in the provincials last year, is a more mature team with 10 players in Grades 11 or 12 and no Grade 9s while the Britannia counts five Grade 9s and six Grade 10s on its roster. Â
The Condors outsized the Bruins as well.
The Britannia team doesn’t have a single girl over 5’ 11” while the Duchess Park team has a 6’4” post in Marcie Schlick and her 6’ sister Alexis, also a post.
But the Britannia team is used to being the underdogs and hit the hardwood prepared to leave it all on the court.
The thirteenth ranked Britannia scored first with a two-pointer from Grade 10 guard Julian Duong.
The Bruins got ahead of the fourth ranked Prince George Condors 15 to 12 at the end of one period of play.
In the second period, the Bruins started to have trouble stopping 5’ 9” Grade 10 Condors guard Nicola Erricson.
Erricson, who played 21 minutes on the night and scored 21 points, struggled to find the net in the first period but could not be knocked off her perch in the second. Â
Good defence in the first half and strong scoring from 5’7” guard and captain Naomi Morcilla kept Britannia in the game.
By the half the Condors were ahead 35 to 24.
Britannia’s 5’7” Duong opened the third with a three-pointer.
Duong played hard the whole 40 minutes and scored 18 points for her team, but the deep bench of the Condors couldn’t be overcome.
The score was 53 to 42 for the Condors at the end of the third.
The Bruins’ girls upped their intensity in the last period and the score was within four points in the final minutes of the game, but by then the Bruins’ workhorses were tired and it showed.
“We made the run we needed, but when it was a four point game we couldn’t make the next shot,” said head coach Mike Evans after the game.
The most any Prince George player was out on the court was 24 minutes (by 6’ 4” post Marcie Schlick) whereas three of the Bruins’ players were out a full 40 minutes (Duong, Morcilla and Leena Yamaguchi) and two other players were in play for 29 minutes (Amanda Young and JD Le).
Morcilla was the team’s top scorer with 24 points on the night.
“It was the hardest 40 minutes I played all season,” she said.“Our team really wanted it, but we just gave out after the end of the third.”
, normally a power shooter, had hoped to help pull off a win but had to leave the court a few times because she was sick and her knee, still healing from ACL surgery, was hurting. She played 29 minutes and scored two points, but in spite of her disappointment she saw a bright spot in the game.
“I am proud that we kept the score that close the whole time,” she said.
Veteran coach Evans was his usual philosophical self about the loss.
He said getting to the provincials was a great experience for his young team and he expected his girls could pull off the ninth place finish in the end.
“This is just the first day of the tournament and they sure played well,” he said.
The Bruins played after deadline on Thursday, and have two more games to play in the tournament.
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