The College Heights Cougars had their high school girls basketball engine in cruise control, leading the Sa-Hali Sabres of Kamloops by 24 points with four minutes gone in the third quarter.
All they had to do was hang on to that lead and fifth place in the 16-team triple-A provincial championship was theirs.
If only it was that easy.
The Sabres started hitting their shots and by the three-quarter mark the College Heights lead was down to 15. Sa-Hali continued the onslaught in the fourth quarter and it was a one-point game with seconds remaining when the ball came to Cougar guard Rachel Loukes. She was immediately fouled on the inbound play and went to the line with four-tenths of second left. Rather than shooting her free throw, she passed the ball to teammate Loren Caceres and the buzzer sounded on a 67-66 College Heights victory.
“With about five minutes left it was a six-point game and we just traded baskets or a little bit and we were just hanging on for dear life,” said Cougars head coach Wade Loukes. “It was pretty tense and the girls were looking at me wondering what to do. But to their credit, our defensive game was really good.
“We slowed them down by pressing them a fair bit and even when they were making their run at the end they had to methodically bring the ball up the court because the press was slowing them down. Credit to Olivia Vigue, Harleen Ghuman and Ainslee Rushton, they again did really well on the boards and caused problems for their post players.
“We hit a couple late to get back up and time kind of ran out on them.”
Cougars guard Rachel Loukes scored a game-high 35 points and had five rebounds, backed by a 21-point game from Sophia Fuller.
The Cougars were seeded fifth in the tournament in Langley and that’s where they finished. They ended up with a 3-1 record, their only loss to R.A. McMath of Richmond, who advanced to the championship game and Mennonite Educational Institute.
“For us to be seeded fifth and come fifth is a huge achievement,” said coach Loukes. “Those top four teams were kind of in a different class and they knocked off all of us other teams.”
Fuller, one of five seniors on the team, said the Cougars might have been better prepared to challenge the frontrunners had they been able to travel in the pandemic-shortened season which kept teams from the north pretty much grounded for nearly two months until provincial health restrictions were lifted.
“I think if we’d been able to go down and play here and had a couple games I think we would have had a better ranking and we would have known what to expect,” said Fuller. “We came down here and had no idea how these teams play and we were just hoping for the best, to be honest.
“We might be a little bit disappointed but we did our best and we had fun. It was just so nice to finally be on the court after COVID and finally being able to play as a team and work together and win.”
The Sabres’ rally was kind of like what happened to College Heights the previous day. In a game against Riverside, the Cougars were reminded how quickly even a healthy lead can evaporate when they were the team that needed a comeback after trailing by 15 points at three-quarter time. The Cougars won that one 71-69.
“In that game we just chipped away and came back and I told my teammates at halftime (Saturday), if we can do that then they can do that,” said Rachel Loukes. “So we just wanted to play our game right to the end, and I think we did that.”
“I’m really happy with how we played overall and I’m glad we could finish our season this way.”
Loukes was named to the second all-star team. The Grade 11 student plays club basketball for Excel, a team based in Port Coquitlam, and will try out for the U-18 team that will represent B.C. at the 2022 Canada Summer Games in Prince Edward Island.
The Duchess Park Condors went 0-4 at the triple-A tournament and finished 16th, losing their final game Friday, 64-48 to the Salish Wolves.
Meanwhile, at the double-A championship, also in Langley, the Shas Ti Kelly Road Grizzlies ended their provincial tournament on a winning note, defeating Selkirk 51-38 in the battle for 15th place.
At the single-A girls provincials in Kelowna, the Northside Christian Northstars of Vanderhoof lost 48-41 Saturday to Kelowna Christian in the seventh-and-eighth-place playoff. The Fort St. James Falcons topped Khalsa 54-43 on Saturday to claim 13th place.
