The Cowichan Secondary Junior Thunderbirds showed how far they have come already this season with close games against some tough competition last weekend - including a game against Vancouver College where the margin was much narrower than the last time the teams met.
"Experience against deep, athletic, physical teams is hard to quantify," T-Birds coach Lucky Walia said. "Due to learning from our previous games, we played this weekend's games with confidence, and had an idea of what to expect in terms of the speed, and physicality of the games. We were able to match what Terry Fox and Vancouver College had to offer.
In their first game of the Thunderbird Invitational Jamboree, Cowichan lost 42-37 to Terry Fox. Noah Charles and Connor Hayer each had 12 points, Hayer sinking four three-pointers, and Humza Khan had eight points.
The following day, the T-Birds fell 47-43 to Vancouver College, who beat the T-Birds 45-22 in their previous meeting. Hayer again made four treys on his way to a team-high 14 points, while Charles had another dozen.
To close out the tournament, Cowichan edged Oak Bay 62-60. Oak Bay banked in a three to tie the score, but Charles drove to score at the buzzer to seal the win. He finished with 18 points, while Khan had 15 and Hayer had nine. The day before the tournament, the T-Birds visited Shawnigan Lake School for a league game, winning 47-35 thanks to 23 points by Charles and 11 by Khan.