They had barely left the starting gate at the double-A girls provincial basketball championship Wednesday in Kamloops when the wheels were starting to fall off on the seventh-seeded D.P. Todd Trojans.
During the warmup for their tournament-opener against No. 10 Clarence Fulton of Vernon, Piper Hoekstra, the Trojans' all-star Grade 12 forward, went down with an ankle injury and was forced to watch the openings minutes of the game from the bench as the Maroons built a 22-point first-quarter lead.
The recovery started in the second quarter and with Jamie Macfarlane spicing the offence, the North Central zone champion-Trojans survived the scare, beating Fulton 74-63.
"It was not a great start to the provincials," said Trojans head coach Reid Roberts.
"The TRU trainer taped [Hoekstra] up after some ice and she wanted to try to play. She did not start, but came off the bench, and actually played most of the game, but got into foul trouble early. She was not her normal force."
While Hoekstra was limited to just six points, Macfarlane picked up the slack and shot a game-high 23 as the player of the game. Macfarlane played an aggressive game and drew eight fouls but made only nine of her 16 foul shots.
"After one quarter, we were down 23-11," said Roberts. "Nothing was working on defence and they scored easily. Jamie hit one three-pointer in the first, but then got going in the second. We outscored them 23-15 in the second, and we were down four [trailing 38-34].
"The second half, we switched up the defence, and our offence started clicking. We outscored them 19-13, and took a 53-51 lead. We went on a 19-5 run and closed the fourth [quarter] 21-12, to win."
Sunita Bansal contributed 13 points the the Trojan cause, while Tenley Pearce and Danielle Steel each shot 11, and Olivia Fotsch hit for eight points.
Later in the day, the Nechako Valley Viqueens opened with a 48-42 win over St. Michael's of Victoria.
The Trojans now turn their attentions to the No. 2-ranked York House Tigers of Vancouver, who they will face in a quarterfinal playoff today at 1:30 p.m. Nechako Valley plays Britannia (Vancouver) today at 6:45 p.m.
Meanwhile, in the double-A boys championship, also being played in Kamloops, the College Heights Cougars lost their tournament opener, 74-61 to the Mission Roadrunners.
Matt Badial led College Heights offensively with 19 points, Nolan Hanson had 17 and Domnick Manhas totaled 16 for the Cougars. Rhys Parry collected 18 points for the Roadrunners.
Mission led 40-33 at halftime.
The Cougars will take on St. Michael's today at 11:30 a.m.
The Cedars Christian Eagles began their provincial A girls championship quest with a 74-47 victory over Charles Bloom of Lumby. No details from that game were available at press time.
Cedars will play Mulgrave of West Vancouver in a quarterfinal game today 10:30 a.m.
At the triple-A girls provincial championship in North Vancouver, the Prince George Polars were crushed 116-17 by the W.H. Mouat Hawks of Abbotsford. Mauvia Nijjier accounted for nearly all of the scoring for the Polars, with 12 points. Kayli Sartori shot 29 to lead the Hawks.
