In the first of their back-to-back AA provincial championship seasons, Brentwood College School’s senior boys basketball team managed to stay under the radar, as much as a contender can.
This year, everyone knew who they were.
In addition to being older, bigger and stronger this year as most of the roster moved up from Grade 11 to Grade 12, Brentwood had a target on its back all season.
“They were totally different seasons,” Brentwood head coach Blake Gage said. “They were both fantastic, but we didn’t have the same expectations last year, and our schedule was tougher this year.”
Making this year’s title even sweeter was the way it was earned. Gage was thrilled with the way his team performed throughout the tournament in Langley.
“It was a particularly wonderful feeling because we played a terrific weekend of basketball,” he said.
Brentwood opened the tournament last Wednesday with a 94-30 trouncing of Grand Forks, then faced their local rivals from Shawnigan Lake School in the quarter-finals on Thursday. Shawnigan led 35-27 at halftime, but Brentwood regrouped at the break and went on to prevail 75-55. Brentwood then dispatched Seycove 93-57 in the semifinals on Friday, and defeated King George 97-59 in Saturday’s final.
Brentwood played Shawnigan six times this season, including in the finals of both the South Island and Island AA tournaments. Each game has been closer than the last.
“They gave us a scare for sure,” Gage said. “We weren’t happy seeing them on our side of the draw. It’s tough to beat a team multiple times.”
In the early going on Thursday, Brentwood wasn’t shooting the ball well, and Shawnigan was.
“They’re big and long. They made things difficult for us on the offensive end.”
In the second half, Gage told his players to “elevate the pressure and get things going at a faster speed,” and the strategy paid off.
Tournament MVP Brendan Sullivan led the way in the final with 25 points, five rebounds, three steals and two assists. Player of the Game Somto Dimonachie added 18 points and 12 rebounds, Bruno Chan had 13 points, 11 rebounds and four assists, and Casper Poelen added 10 points.
Brentwood’s “defensive intensity” in the final was key, Gage said, as well as the fact that most of the players had played in the final a year earlier.
“The team we played in the final is a really good team,” Gage noted. “I don’t think they played their best, and I think we had something to do with that.”
Gage gave credit to Liam Sullivan, who has coached Brentwood’s junior team the last few years and served as an assistant with the senior team, in addition to his full-time teaching duties.
“He’s a big reason the guys on the senior team are ready to go,” Gage said. “He’s done a great job developing guys in Grade 8, 9 and 10.”
Brentwood will lose nine of their 12 players to graduation, including Chan, who was named the Most Outstanding Defensive Player and a first-team all-star at provincials, and fellow all-star Nathan Pasloske, as well as Sullivan, Poelen and Dimonachie. Also moving on are Jonathan MacDonald, Olamide Olatunbosun, Will Nemeth and Jeff Modupe.
Most of those players have spent four years at Brentwood.
“It’s been a pretty special journey, for sure. It will be hard to say goodbye, mainly because they’re like a family. They’re a neat bunch.”
Ian Graber and Grant Dillard will return next year, and German student Fynn Fauvet is eligible to return, although Gage doesn’t yet know if he will be back at Brentwood next year.
“I don’t expect us to have the same kind of team next year,” he said. “The guys who are coming back are great guys who I know will work hard, and the guys coming up from junior will work hard. Expectations will be lower, but we may surprise some people. We’ll see.”
With files from Black Press