The Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»College Fighting Irish came into the 2013-14 Quad-A B.C. championship a lion, but left a lamb with an 82 to 91 loss in their final game to the Fraser Valley’s Walnut Grove Gators.
The Irish started the 2013-14 season slow, but by late January were playing great ball when they reached the finals of their own Emerald Tournament.
The team had rounded into form to become a contender as the Irish rolled off six straight wins to end the season.
On the strength of these wins, the last of which won College the Lower Mainland Quad-A title, the Irish earned the No. 3 seed in the annual provincial tournament.
Things crashed back to earth for the Irish on Thursday evening however as they lost their quarter-final game against fellow independent Surrey's Holy Cross.
A second loss on Friday meant all that was left Saturday was bragging rights — the Lower Mainland against the Fraser Valley.
One of the highlights of Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»College’s season was the emergence of Elijah Campbell-Axson as a legitimate star in boy’s basketball.
He was able to put up big points on every team they played, and Saturday against Walnut Grove was no exception.
Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»College used nice ball movement to create lanes that Campbell-Axson would knife through to create opportunities to score or to get to the line.
And when he chose to shoot off a screen, Campbell-Axson was deadly accurate going four for nine on the night from the field and four for eight from beyond the arc.
He would finish with 24 points and would later be named to the tournament’s second all-star team.
As a team though, the Irish defense playing against the high flying Gators and their scoring ace Jadon Cohee were not able to get the stops they needed.
Walnut Grove Shot 51 per cent for the night and by half time had built a 43 to 31 lead.
Coach Lloyd Scrubb’s halftime adjustments paid off at the net as Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»College had a big third quarter putting up 27 points and closed the lead to two before a pair of Cohee threes ended the frame 64 to 58 Gators.
While Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»College was having a tough time with their defense, the offense remained in sync as they tied the score with 7:58 remaining behind a pair of Jordon Lum-Tong threes. Lum-Tong would foul out shortly after however and with that, the Irish luck dried up as the Gators built a five-point lead.
Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»College would foul late to stop the clock but the Gators would hit their free throws, hang on for the win and earn bragging rights for the last time in the 2014 season.
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