Kavanjot Varaich was in his glory again as the Prince George Polars’ basketball court general Saturday afternoon at Shas Ti Kelly Road Secondary School gym, playing the game he loves.
Robbed by the pandemic of his opportunity to wear Polar green in a game that mattered when high school sports in the province were canceled for the entire 2020-21 school year, the 15-year-old point guard tapped into his deep supply of pent-up energy to deliver an electrifying performance in Saturday’s Megabowl junior A boys tournament final against the Duchess Park Condors.
Trailing 23-13 at the half, the Condors switched strategies to try to limit the damage the versatile Varaich was doing to them with his dribbling drives through the middle, but he knew what to do and started letting go his long-range loopers. When the shooting finally stopped, the Polars had themselves a 58-40 win to celebrate.
“I just put the team on my back, we wanted to get that win,” said Varaich, who hit five threes in a 21-point second half he punctuated with two defensive steals. “We’re off to good start, we have a lot of potential on our team and I feel we can go far. We’re honorable mention in B.C. so I feel like we can be ranked top-10.”
The Condors advanced with a tense five-point semifinal win over the College Heights Cougars, while on the other semifinal court PGSS easily handled the host STRD Grizzlies 73-19.
The Polars dictated play in the final and moved the ball quicker and with more authority than their opponents did. They’re a confident crew and that bodes well for them.
“I like this team’s dedication, everyone shows up for practice and they put their heart, sweat and tears into practice,” said Varaich. “Everyone’s competitive and I like how competitive we are and how aggressive we are on defence and I like our team chemistry.”
Eight of the Polars played together two years ago when they were the junior A top dogs in the North Central district. The Polars play together in off-season at the Family Y and the core of the team – Varaich, Ethan Gilbert, Mathew Bowler, Gage Cooke, Daniel Traore, Harsh Cheema, Kabir Bhathal, Rajaveer Gill and Rvnoor Thandi - have been tuning up their act at the Northern Bounce Basketball Academy. Cooke complemented Varaich as an offensive standout for PGSS in the final and he also had success forcing turnovers.
“It’s a fun group, it’s a real special group that works hard and likes to get in the gym at least five times a week and we have fun together but we also work hard,” said Polars head coach Nick Novak, a former Polar point guard who graduated PGSS in 2013.
“It’s been pretty tough getting the kids motivated to see the bigger picture that all this (pandemic) stuff is going to come to an end one day and it feels really good to be back. It’s pretty cool for them to have the high school season back. There's just something so intimate about high school basketball the kids will never forget and they’ll take that with them when they move on past high school and they'll develop relationships and bonds that last a lifetime.”
With no games last season and this season just beginning, PGSS started the week ranked 14th in the coaches’ provincial poll, based on their 2019 finish at the junior A provincials and they plan to move that needle higher by the time they get to Surrey in January for Holy Cross tournament, their first big trip of the season.
“They should be ranked, just because they have four or maybe five guys who could play senior,” said Condors head coach Dave Adolph. “It’s just one of those teams making that junior run and they’re going up together and it was a huge test for us; we knew what we were getting into.”
Matthew Hart was a bull under the hoops hauling in rebounds for the Condors and Josh Tamblyn, Traye Barth, Anthony Lee and Jake Billbrough had moments of brilliance sinking points or the guys in white but lacked consistency, misfiring on their field goal attempts and at the foul line.
“We planned for their vaunted press like they’ve always had and they took it off, and that was a bit of a surprise for us,” said Adolph. “But we were just super-excited with the whole weekend – College Heights and PGSS are going to be great. After next weekend we’re doing all local tournaments so we’re going to see these guys six times, so we can’t wait, it’s just awesome competition.
“I didn’t know what to expect this weekend and that adrenaline pump just from the semi(final) was awesome. It was just great to be back.”
