The last three minutes of the season for Shawnigan Lake School’s senior boys basketball team were as exciting as any the team had played all year.
The St. Patrick Celtics battled back in the final three minutes against three teams in a row, and Shawnigan was no exception in the game for fifth place at the provincial AA tournament in Langley last week.
Shawnigan had dominated most of the game, but St. Pat’s came on strong in the late going and managed to go ahead by one point. Shawnigan sank three baskets in a row to regain the lead, then survived a barrage of six consecutive turnovers.
“We made all types of turnovers,” Shawnigan head coach Vito Pasquale recalled. “You could count how many different styles we had. Looking back, it was funny.”
Shawnigan managed to hang on for a 73-70 victory over St. Pat’s, locking up fifth place in the province in their first provincial tournament since 2010.
Coming in as the third seed from the very competitive Island region and ranked 11th overall, Shawnigan won three times and lost only one game at the tournament, falling to eventual champions Collingwood in the quarterfinals.
“We probably gave them as good a game as anybody they played all the way through,” Pasquale said.
Shawnigan opened the tournament with a 90-74 win over Pacific Academy, a team they had lost to once during the season, but who Pasquale knew they matched up well against.
Litha Ncanisa led the team with 24 points and 10 rebounds, while Sheldon Crisp came off the bench to score 21. Linus Lauren shook off a sprained ankle that had kept him out of the Island tournament two weeks earlier to score 12, and Tristan Mandur added 11.
Ncanisa scored 26 points and grabbed 12 boards and Crisp scored another 11 in the next game, a 66-52 loss to Collingwood. The team regrouped after that, and won both their next games against full-court pressing teams.
Crisp led the team with 24 points in a 79-71 victory over Abbotsford Christian. Ncanisa had 16 points and a team-high 20 rebounds despite Abbotsford’s very aggressive defensive tactics, while Mostyn Findlay scored 16 and Lauren added 11.
Ncanisa put up his gaudiest numbers against St. Pat’s: 29 points and 22 rebounds. Lauren had his highest point total of the tournament with 22, and Crisp chipped in 10 points.
At the end of last season, Shawnigan had set the goal of a top-eight finish in 2016, and accomplished that and more.
“It was a fabulous experience for the seniors and the school to do what the team did,” Pasquale said. “I couldn’t be any happier about what we accomplished.”
Ncanisa, a six-foot-five post player from South Africa, was named a second-team all-star at the end of the tournament.
“He was dominant,” Pasquale said. “It was incredible what he did. It’s been good to see him mature into the player he has become over the last three years. With his numbers and the way we played, he probably should have been a first-team all-star. His numbers were outstanding throughout the tournament.”
Shawnigan is graduating nine players from this year’s team, and Pasquale knows that his squad will be in tough next year against St. Michael’s University School and Lambrick Park teams that will return all their key players, and a Brentwood team that will include most of this year’s provincial junior champions.
“The Island will be incredibly strong next year,” he said. “It always has been. Getting off the Island in AA is one of the hardest things to do.”