The 6-foot-10 KC Ibekwe still managed 30 points and 19 rebounds, but No. 7-seed Thunderbirds win 86-73 to advance to Friday’s semifinal at the Quad A provincials.
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Semiahmoo Thunderbirds guard Torian Lee says that all season his team talked about making the Friday semifinals at the Quad A boys basketball provincial championships, and then seeing what could happen from there.
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On Thursday, those words came to fruition, as the No. 7 Thunderbirds upended the No. 2 Centennial Centaurs 86-73 at the Langley Events Center to qualify for The Final Four of high school boys’ basketball’s top tier. The Surrey team will face either the No. 3 Vancouver College Fighting Irish or the No. 11 Fleetwood Park Dragons of Surrey who were playing in a late quarterfinal Thursday.
“We’ve been trying to get to Friday all year. That’s been the goal,” said Lee, to quicksilver guard. “Anything can happen after you get to Friday.
“We’re so excited. This is awesome.”
The Centaurs of Coquitlam had the most notable win of the season in the province ahead of the provincials, knocking off the No. 1-ranked Burnaby South Rebels 69-62 in the Fraser Valley North playoffs Feb. 25. Burnaby South came into this tournament with a 29-1 record.
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The No. 5 seeds, the Rebels, were playing the No. 4 Kelowna Owls in another late quarterfinal Thursday.
Centennial features imposing KC Ibekwe, a 6-foot-10 center who has several inches on Semiahmoo’s two biggest players — Cole Bekkering (6-foot-5) and Marcus Floares (6-foot-7).
Centennial had great success when they got the ball inside to Ibekwe. I have finished with 30 points, on 12-for-13 shooting from the floor and 6-of-8 from the foul line. He also had 19 rebounds, helping Centennial to a 36-23 edge in that statistic.
Semiahmoo managed to keep passes from getting to him and keep the game at a quick enough tempo often enough that Centennial couldn’t get that offense set up frequently enough to take advantage of Ibekwe.
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“I was thinking that I was going to have to have 10-to-12 players on the floor to stop KC,” Semiahmoo coach Ed Lefurgy said. “I’m really happy with how our boys adjusted so well on the fly. That’s a testament to how good basketball players they are.”
Semiahmoo had some experience facing Ibekwe, since the Centaurs and the Thunderbirds opened the season Dec. 2 squaring off in the Heritage Woods Kodiak Classic in Port Moody. Semiahmoo took that one, 70-69.
“He’s tough. He’s the best player on their team. We knew if we could shut him down we had a chance,” Lee said.
Lee, a 5-foot-10 Grade 10, was superb for the Thunderbirds, finishing with 32 points, five assists and five steals. He was 14-of-25 from the floor.
“He’s incredible,” Lefurgy said. “And he’s very coachable. He looks you in the eye when you coach him, he’s very positive with his teammates and he works very hard.”
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Semiahmoo, who shot 48 per cent from the field (36-of-75) compared with 53.7 per cent (29-of-54) for Centennial, also got 16 points from Grade 12 forward Sam Snyder and 14 from Bekkering.
Lefurgy led Semiahmoo to the Quad A finale in 2018, where they lost 80-72 to Burnaby South. He says that he felt this team had Final Four capabilities early on in the season.
“I knew my guys were very coachable and I knew they were going to get better every day,” he continued. “I thought these guys had what it took because of athleticism, because of their experience and because we practiced over 90 times, and that doesn’t include our lunchtime video or our early morning shooters. These guys probably want to shoot right now. They just love it.”
The top-seeded St. George’s Saints of Vancouver were facing the No. 8 Walnut Grove Gators in the other quarterfinal Thursday.
Centennial received a 16-point effort from Grade 12 guard Nick Yang and 11 points from Grade 11 guard Matthew Lee.
Saturday’s championship game is at 8:15 pm It will be preceded by the Triple A (6 pm); Double A (3:45 p.m.); and Single A (1:30 p.m.) finals.
There were no provinces last spring. All of high school sport was left in practise-only mode due to COVID-19. Burnaby South beat Kelowna 70-58 in the 2020 final. Vancouver College finished third.
