Sa-Hali Secondary had quite the Okanagan championship as their play earned them two births at the provincial junior basketball championship in Langley.
Both the girls' and boys' junior basketball teams earned births for the first time in school history. Fresh off winning the West Zone Championship, the girls knocked off W.L. Seaton in the third-place game to clinch their spot while the boys, who were ranked last going into Oaks, upset Princess Margaret to get into the bronze medal game and secure the fourth and final spot.
According to the girls' head coach Jody Vosper, the team has been clicking all year and provincials is just another step in the right direction.
"They've been an awesome group this year, so I'm super excited about them," said Vosper. "They're a great team and they've worked really hard to get in here. To now, there is a huge improvement in everyone's play so it's been a great team effort."
Vosper adds that, come the tournament, the team will continue to play how they have all season.
"Yep, we will just do what we've been doing every game and that is work hard, play tough defence and then go from there."
The girls come into the tournament ranked 18th out of 24 teams while the boys sit at 27th in a field of 32. Boys' head coach Steve Bentz explained that after hanging around in games with second-seeded Kelowna, teams shouldn't underestimate the young men.
"We're playing the sixth seed so nobody is expecting us to win that game, there is no pressure on us," said Bentz. "I saw on their website they were talking provincial championships and I'm sure we're not even on their radar. That's fine, we gave Kelowna a pretty good run so we will see what happens, you never know if a team is unprepared and the other team is running and gunning."
"It's awesome, it's a great group of boys. I've been with this group since grade eight so we've been together for three years. Grade eight we came third in the city, last year as a tier two team we won the league, and this year coming into the season I said look it's a realistic goal to win city championship or at least making city finals and qualifying for Oaks. We did and here we are."
The girls will find out their draw for the tournament at 7 p.m. tonight. Saturday marks the start of the boys' tournament while the girls' tourney goes on Wednesday. Full tournament action is available online for boys and girls, or you can take in the action at the Langley Event Centre.
