Garrett Anderson went down in a heap under the basket, clutching his leg in agony. His painful moans could be heard around the Duchess Park gym as a hush fell over the crowd watching the Mann Dental 3V3 P.G. Summer Hoops Classic senior boys basketball final.
There were still four minutes left in the 20-minute game and Anderson’s team was ahead 44-30 at the time but there was no way he could continue. As it turned out, what looked to some like a knee injury was just a bad cramp in the Grade 12 senior’s calf muscle and Anderson made his way to the bench and ate a banana to give his energy-depleted body what it lacked after he’d taxing his reserves heavily in a long day on the court.
“I’ve never had that before, it kind of put me into shock,” said Anderson. “The possession just before that I did a layup and came down and something didn’t feel right in my calf, and when I came down on that one it just tensed up."
Luckily for Anderson, his all-Duchess Park team elected to go with four players instead of three. Tournament MVP Soren Erricson continued to drain threes and Dan Zimmerman and Braydon Wolitski did their part, chipping in with a few more buckets and making it difficult for their opponents – Colburn Pearce, Malcolm MacDonald and Raymon Dhillon – to find the target. The Anderson clan went on to win 50-36.
“We’ve done this (tournament) for three years now and it feels good to get the win,” said Anderson. “We had some pretty close games with a lot of teams that we basically had no idea what to expect, like the Terrace and Kitimat and McBride teams. So going into every game not knowing what you’re going to get out of it was awesome. Knowing that on the other side were three of the star Duchess guys on our senior team this year in the final game was unreal.”
Erricson’s long-range bombs seemed indefensible at times. Although he wasn’t quite as hot in the final as he had been the previous six games, the Grade 11 Condor left no doubt he will be coveted by college recruiters when he resumes his high school career next season.
“When Soren gets into the right mindset he’s one of the best shooters in B.C.,” said Anderson. "Whenever we were kind of in the gutters and we were down in a 10-point match it would click in to Soren where he would just start banging them. In one of the games he hit four back-to-back, just like we saw (in the final)."
Pearce and Erricson won the tournament together last year with Will Bourque as their third. This year Dhillon, a D.P. Todd Trojan senior, took the third spot on Pearce’s team with MacDonald as the only non-Condor in the senior boys final. Dhillon has played with the Duchess guys since he was in Grade 7 with the Junior Timberwolves. They know each other’s tendencies and their chemistry on the 3-on-3 court was obvious.
“It’s a long tournament, you always have to be physically ready and in shape and stay hydrated and we competed to the end, but congrats to the team that won it,” said Dhillon. “It’s one day, it’s always fun. To make it all the way to the final you have to be mentally tough and stay strong. It’s just two 10-minute halves and you’ve got to give it your all in those 20 minutes and it takes a lot out of you, but it’s a good tournament for a good cause and everyone’s in on it.”
The fourth annual event raises money for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of B.C. & Yukon and this year's total is expected to exceed $10,000.
In the girls final, the Duchess trio of Kayla Gregory, Rebecca Landry and Marley Rex joined forces with Jenna Korolek of Kelly Road to take on a team of Grade 10s – Nina Gajic and Erin Unger, both of Prince George secondary school – and Camryn Douglas of College Heights. Landry, a Grade 11 student, teamed up with Gregory and won the 3-on-3 tournament last year. They led 18-12 at halftime and were never in danger of losing the final but their younger opponents made them work for their 34-20 victory.
"It's my last year this year so I thought we'd better push hard and keep playing hard and our team effort was awesome," said Gregory, who will move on to college basketball at Vancouver Island University. "I like how this is for a good cause and you actually get a good workout out of it. My legs are dead."
Playing with the luxury of a fresh player coming off the bench when needed, an advantage their opponents didn't have, Landry was the field general dictating where the ball should go and was a repeat winner of the tournament MVP award.
Gajic knew her young team was a longshot going into the tournament. The three of them play club basketball together and they turned a lot of heads beating out teams loaded with senior experience.
"We weren't expecting to be this high in the tournament but we worked really hard together to succeed and get second place, which is pretty good," said Gajic. "We thought they were going to just crush us but we had motivation in us to work hard and try to stop them so we just whipped it out and tried to get the momentum going.
"I love these tournaments, I've been here since nine this morning but I still have energy. With the music and all the parents watching, it's nice."
Cameron Sale couldn't seem to miss from three-point range and was the junior boys MVP. His all-D.P. Todd Trojan team of Colton Meehan, Holden Black and Jackson Kuc scored a 50-29 win in the junior final over Saager Shergill, Aman Bansal, Zach Hitz and Shane Sandhu.
