Junior Girls Basketball
The SMUS Junior Girls Basketball team continued what has so far been a highly successful season with an appearance in a tournament final for the second straight weekend.
The provincially ninth-ranked Junior Jags won three games to reach the final of the Victoria Christmas Invitational, where they dropped a hard-fought 47-45 decision to the Riverside Rapids on Saturday afternoon. Linn Kuepper scored 17 points for the SMUS Juniors in what was their first loss of the season while Mikaela Dubé added 16.
The Blue Jags reached the final with a 64-46 win over Oak Bay in Saturday’s semifinal. Dubé had 24 points and 13 rebounds in that game while Kuepper and Elspeth Rodger contributed 16 points apiece.
In Friday’s action, SMUS beat York House 64-16 behind a 22-point performance from Rodger, 18 points from Dubé and 17 from Kuepper. The Blue Jags followed that up with a 59-54 victory over Argyle, BC’s third-ranked junior team. Dubé scored 24 points in that game, while Kuepper and Rodger added 17 apiece.
In a Lower Island Junior Girls Division 1 road exhibition game last Tuesday, SMUS beat Royal Bay 58-17. Rodger led the way with 18 points while Dubé had 14 and Addison Tait nine.
The Junior Girls will travel to Oak Bay for another exhibition this Tuesday at 4:15 pm. They are also competing in the Charles Best Secondary Buckets Tournament in Coquitlam this coming weekend with their first game on Friday night against Seycove.
Senior Girls Basketball
The SMUS Senior Girls Basketball team opened tournament play this past weekend, placing third in the annual Victoria Christmas Invitational. The tournament featured several top teams at both the AAAA and AA level.
In their opening round game, the Senior Blue Jags got off to a hot start, taking a 12-0 lead over Lord Tweedsmuir of Surrey, BC’s 5th-ranked AAAA team. In control for much of the game, the Jags maintained a cushion, however they couldn’t quite put the Panthers away. Up just three points in the final minute of play, the Blue Jags held on for the 67-63 win. Charlie Anderson led all scorers with 32 points and 10 boards. Avery Geddes had 13 points and Isabela Herrera Orduna chipped in 10.
Next up for the Blue Jags would be AAAA third-ranked Argyle of Vancouver. With just a one-game break, the Blue Jags opened the contest a bit flat, down 10-0 after just a few minutes. However, some scrappy play and early free throws by Herrera Orduna kept the Senior Jags in touch. They would close the quarter down 16-13. Boasting a much bigger lineup, the Pipers were a handful to contain defensively. Down again in the second quarter, 26-13, the Jags clawed their way back to close the half trailing by just two points, at 30-28.
Hot shooting by Geddes in the second half, along with some nifty finishing and solid rebounding by Olivia Pickering, helped SMUS stage a second-half comeback for which the Pipers had no answer. The Blue Jags held on to win 63-52. Geddes finished with 24 points, Anderson added 19, Herrera Orduna had 14, and Pickering chipped in with six points and seven rebounds.
That put SMUS into Saturday morning’s tournament semifinal against perennial AAAA favourite and current sixth-ranked Riverside of Port Coquitlam. A well-oiled Rapids squad would prove to be too much for the Blue Jags as they got down early. Missed layups, careless turnovers against pressure, and a sizzling Riverside offence were too much to overcome as they handed the Senior Jags their first loss of the season, 84-50. As always, defensive wizard Joss Olcen played solidly and added four points. Herrera Orduna would lead all Blue Jags in scoring with 14 points – on 3-of-6 shooting from downtown.
With little time to regroup, the Blue Jags had to face AA rival and No. 2-ranked Holy Cross of Surrey for third place. The bronze medal game saw both teams get off to a shaky start. It wasn't until the second half that the Blue Jags began to find their groove, outscoring the Crusaders in a 19-3 run. Anderson was deadly in transition and Herrera Orduna made her mark in the low post. Perhaps more impressive was the team’s defensive effort, holding the Crusaders to 38 points for the game. SMUS would win 57-38. Anderson turned in another monster game with 24 points and 20 rebounds – her second double-double of the young season. Geddes added 15 points and Herrera Orduna 12.
In a Lower Island Division 1 league game last Tuesday, the visiting Blue Jags beat Royal Bay 71-37. Anderson had 24 points and seven steals in that victory while Geddes contributed 23 points and six steals.
Looking ahead to the coming week, the Blue Jags will host their first home game of the season on Tuesday night as they take on the Claremont Spartans in league action, tipping off at 5:45 pm. Then the team is off to the Tsumura Basketball Invitational, another huge opportunity to play the best teams in the province. SMUS will open on Wednesday at 7:45 pm against AAAA power Kelowna. All of the tournament games will be streamed live for free at https://stream.prestosports.com/tfsetv.
Senior Boys Basketball
The Senior Boys Basketball team played just once last week, escaping Pacific Christian School with a dramatic come-from-behind 54-51 win over the homecourt Pacers on Tuesday night.
The Blue Jags trailed hot-shooting PCS by 11 points at one stage of the fourth quarter before rallying for the Lower Island AA league win in front of a large, boisterous student crowd. Grade 11 point guard Dani Pelyhe drove for what would prove to be a contested winning lefthanded layup in the final minute and he added two free throws several seconds later to seal the victory.
Davis Hardy scored 17 points to lead the Blue Jags in the win while Pelyhe added 16. SMUS is now 2-0 in league play.
The Blue Jags will travel to Parkland for a 7:30 pm tip on Tuesday in their final league game before the holiday break. SMUS will also head to the Mainland for the annual 16-team No Regrets Tournament hosted by several North Vancouver schools this week. The Blue Jags will take on Handsworth of North Vancouver in their tournament opener on Thursday at 2 pm.
Junior Boys Basketball
The SMUS Junior Boys Basketball team earned its first Lower Island Division 1 league victory of the season last Tuesday, beating Mount Douglas 69-52 on the road.
The Junior Jags got 15 points from Alex MacKay, 12 from Manav Kang and 10 from Henry Lake to beat the Rams. Everybody contributed in the win as the Jags led by as many as 30 points in the second half. The victory leaves SMUS at 1-1 in league play so far this season.
Things didn’t go quite as smoothly for an injury- and sickness-plagued Blue Jags squad on Saturday, however, as the team dropped a pair of exhibition games at Brentwood College. The Jags let a nine-point halftime lead slip away in a 71-67 loss to Quw’utsun in their first contest of the day as poor defence and turnovers hurt them after the break. MacKay led SMUS with 30 points while William Low had 17 and Kang 13.
Already playing without Lake, who was injured in the opening minutes of the first game, as well as missing two other potential starters who couldn’t make the trip, the Blue Jags also lost Kang and MacKay to injury by the half against Brentwood in their second game of the day. The result went from a tight five-point game at the break to a 66-42 SMUS loss to the home side. MacKay led the Blue Jags with 12 first-half points while Ming Tsang added 10 and Carter Muise had a strong all-around game with seven points, several rebounds and a solid defensive effort.
The Junior Jags will play their first home league games of the season – against a 2-0 Edward Milne team on Tuesday at 4:15 pm, and against Reynolds on Wednesday at 7:15 pm. SMUS will also play an exhibition game against the defending BC Junior champion Terry Fox Ravens of Coquitlam on Saturday at Oak Bay, beginning at 12:30 pm.
Junior ‘B’ Boys Basketball
The SMUS Junior B Boys Basketball team tipped off its season with a fierce defensive effort in a 47-12 exhibition road win over Spectrum Junior B last Thursday.
The Junior Bs will play another exhibition at Edward Milne in Sooke at 5:45 pm on Monday. The team will see its first Lower Island Division 2 league home action against Vic High this Thursday beginning at 4:15 pm in the Single Gym.
