A year ago, the Seycove Seyhawks of North Vancouver dressed one Grade 12 starter and lost the provincial final 80-71 to the Duchess Park Condors of Prince George.
With all five starters looking at graduating gowns in 2017, the Seyhawks used that experience to stop the VSS Panthers 69-54 Saturday night in the 45th B.C. Senior AA Girls Basketball Championships final at the Langley Events Centre.
The No. 1-ranked Seyhawks jumped on the Cats early and went up 14-2.
“We played them relatively even the remainder of the half and game but couldn’t put together a long enough run to get the lead to under eight points,” said Panther head coach Lonny Mazurak, assisted by Dave Tetreault. “The second half opened with a 14-8 spurt by Seycove and we never recovered.”
Mackenzie Horst rang up 20 points and 10 rebounds for VSS, while game MVP Megan Rouault pocketed 19 points and 10 boards. Rouault and teammate Brianna Falk were named to the tournament’s first all-star team.
Rouault, who has a scholarship with the CIS Thompson Rivers WolfPack of Kamloops for next fall, was chosen to the Super 15 by Varsity Letters and the B.C. Secondary Schools Girls Basketball Association. That list includes players from all levels of senior girls hoops.
Game MVP for Seycove was Sage Stobbart, who was tourney MVP, Top Defensive Player and a first team all-star. Stobbart, a 6-foot-3 post, plays for the national junior team and has committed to the University of California-Davis Aggies, just west of Sacramento.
“She’s a great player,” said the 5-foot-8 Rouault. “On offence, she’s unstoppable, and on defence, she’s a huge presence. She’s a very classy player, as is their whole team.”
Said Seycove head coach Darcy Grant, who credits the Steve Nash summer program on the North Shore for Seycove’s rising success : “This is very exciting, I am very proud of these girls. They knew what Vernon felt like last year. For them to work as hard as they did and achieve their goals is unbelievable. I am very proud of them.”
Kayla Krug of Seycove rated first all-star team status, while Horst was selected to the second all-star team. Lindsey Bott of Seycove was chosen to the second all-star squad.
“They shot the ball at a 55 per cent clip with many of those shots highly contested on our part so they had a great shooting day on the right day,” said Mazurak.
“Coach T and I are very proud of the girls’ accomplishments not just this week but for the whole season. A 33-2 record, zone championship, valley championship and a silver medal at provincials has made this one of the most memorable basketball seasons in Panther basketball history. Their ability to face adversity and be resilient week after week all season made this group special. For many of our games, we only had six players but this was no big deal to this group.”
Maddy Gobeil of the bronze-medalist South Kamloops Titans and Hannah Krepp of the fourth-place Langley Christian Lightning also made the first all-star team. The Most Sportsmanlike Team award went to the College Heights Cougars of Prince George.
Roualt, who averages 19.8 points, six rebounds, five assists and three steals a game, drew high props from high school blogger Howard Tsumura, formerly of the Vancouver Province.
Wrote Tsumura: “Competitive spirit unmistakable, as is her love of the game. That base has opened up the sport’s entire repertoire to her, and is reflected in both her generalship and her ability to consistently produce significant numbers in all areas of her game.” Tsumura listed guard Louise Forsyth of the Brookswood Bobcats (Langley) as the Player of the Year.