Jordan Yu feels vindicated.
With Yu at the helm as head coach, the Duchess Park Condors completed their City League boys basketball threepeat Wednesday night at the Northern Sport Centre, beating the D.P. Todd Trojans 76-68.
The last time Yu was on the court in a City League final he was wearing a Condors uniform in his Grade 12 season and he felt the sting of an overtime loss to the Trojans. It forever gave the Trojan players of Yu’s era bragging rights and they still don’t mind rubbing in whenever they meet up with the now-35-year-old.
“It was even all year long with them and I remember missing a free throw at the end of the game and it went into overtime, so it might have been my fault we lost that game,” said Yu. “I never won a city championship and they say coaching is the next best thing to playing so I’m pretty happy right now.”
To help erase that sour memory for their coach, the Condors needed to rally to overcome a hot-handed bunch of Trojans, who built a 39-33 halftime lead.
“We knew they were playing some great basketball, over the last couple weeks they’ve really upped their game and we had heard they were doing well in tournaments they were at and we expected that and they came out firing,” said Yu. “We just tried to be focused in the second half and try to get as many defensive stops as we could and just not give them many open looks.”
D.P. Todd simply had no answer for Colburn Pearce, the Condors exquisite senior point guard, who saved his best for the second half. He shredded the Trojans for 15 points in the third quarter and was the primary instigator behind a 12-0 run in the fourth quarter which gave the Condors a 16-point lead.
When his team needed him most, Pearce answered the call, finishing with 36 points -nearly half his team’s entire offensive output.
“I knew it was going to be a tough game when they came out really hitting their shots and I guess anyone could have stepped up but it just happened to be me tonight,” said Pearce. “My team’s good enough that I knew if I stepped up, everyone else is ready to step up their game as well. (The Trojans) definitely came out ready to play and they were very high-percentage shooting in the first half which made them tough to guard them because they were sending shots overtop of you. We just had to weather through that and just get at them in the second half.”
Pearce’s football running back ability has earned him an offer from UBC to play there next season and it shows in the way he drives for the hoop and his quickness and ability to shuffle from side to side kept the Trojans guessing. With four minutes left in the third quarter, he started chipping away at the Trojans’ six-point lead, first stealing the ball to run the length of the floor and score.
Before the Trojans could answer, Malcolm MacDonald followed suit with a steal-and-score of his own and seconds later Pearce got the ball back and drove in for another layup. Pearce scored 15 points in the third quarter to give Duchess a 61-56 lead and fired seven more in the fourth quarter to cement the championship.
Ray Dhillon and Cameron Sale set the tone early for the Trojans, scoring 13 points apiece in the first half. Each hit three shots from three-point land in those opening 16 minutes.
The teams had played each other three times this season; none of those games were as close as the City League final.
“We were the underdogs coming into this game, no one really thought we were going to win and we came out firing,” said Dhillon. “We came in intense, for all of us, this is our first city final and we dealt with all the pressure and we played a great game and I’m really proud of the guys. Those guys had been here before.
“Colburn is a very solid player, just his athleticism and his speed take over for him. They started pressuring us and forcing up shots and it was getting a bit late and we weren’t really used to the pressure. But we worked hard to the end and I’m proud of all of us.”
Sale, a Grade 10 guard, led the Trojans with 21 points, Dhillon collected 18 points and Holden Black finished with 13. Soren Erricson had a 13-point game for the Condors.
The Condors are loaded with six seniors and are ranked as the No. 6 triple-A team in the province and they will host the triple-A zone tournament in two weeks. Pearce, who is juggling post secondary scholarship offers to play football and basketball, likes his team’s chances of an extended run at the B.C. title, March 7-10 in Langley.
“I’m very excited about this team, we have a lot of good Grade 12s that have been playing and all of our Grade 11s and even our Grade 10s have been playing well this year,” said Pearce.
n The Condors played the Charles Hays Rainmakers of Prince Rupert Thursday afternoon in the first of a two-game set at Duchess Park gym. The rematch is set for Friday at 11:20 a.m. The Rainmakers wisely traveled by train on Wednesday, avoiding the dangerous highway driving conditions caused by Wednesday’s snowstorm that dumped 40 centimetres on the city.
