Churchill Bulldogs 81 -- 53 Britannia Bruins
The Churchill Bulldogs took a big bite out of the three-time defending city champion Britannia Bruins Friday night and came away with the first senior girls basketball title in school history.
Friday night at Britannia secondary, Churchill extended a one-point first-quarter lead into a 13-point spread at halftime. The Bulldogs outscored the Bruins by 11 points in the third quarter and held the hosts to only eight points in the fourth to run away with an 81-53 victory.
“This was -- I told them at the beginning -- the biggest game they’ve played in,” said Bulldogs coach Jennifer Eng. “They embraced the moment, everyone on our team stepped up.”
Despite outscoring the Bruins every quarter, the growing gap didn’t comfort the Bulldogs, said Eng. They’ve lost games they’d comfortably led.
“We play very poorly when we’re ahead. We don’t have the experience to know what to do, when to push the ball and when to slow it down. We’re great when we have to come back,” said the Churchill coach and alumna who has led the Bulldogs with Sabrina Chan since they both graduated in 2005.
Five-foot-10 guard Tova Rae, who’s often charged with defending an opponent’s post player, said the Bulldogs can get too complacent when they’re ahead. They don’t flinch when an opponent goes on a scoring run as long as they still hold a lead. But when they’re trailing, “We really up the ante,” she said.
Against Britannia in the city championship, they tried a different approach to protect their growing advantage.
“At halftime I remember the coaches telling us, ‘You do play better when you’re losing. I hate to tell you.’”
According to Rae, her teammate Katrina Kwong suggested, “ ‘Why don’t we just make the score the opposite for us and say we’re losing.’
“It was in the back of our minds,” continued Rae. “We were not going to let this go and fall into our bad habit of letting things slip when it really matters.”
Playing in its fourth city final since 2012, Britannia was on the hunt for a fourth consecutive title. Undefeated in seven regular season games, the Bruins had beaten Churchill twice this year, once in a league meeting and again in a tournament. Both games were close, marking Churchill’s improvement since last season when they were whooped 67-38 by Britannia.
Churchill counts one Grade 12 student who missed much of the season because of an injury. The roster is otherwise made up of four Grade 10 and six Grade 11 players, none taller than five-foot-10.
In the championship, Rae led with 20 points, five steals and seven rebounds. Eloise Faehndrich had 16 points and seven steals. Alexa Leynes added 15 points and six steals. Grade 10 point guard Kwong, who had 13 points, runs the Bulldogs offence and plays for Team B.C. along with Leynes.
Because of injuries, Britannia was short several key players, including star Julian Duong.
“Winning really means a lot seeing our team is really young,” said Rae. “It’s really just not underestimating any team we would come up against.
“We’re a very consistently fast team. Lots of the players on our team can run with the ball and move it up the court quickly. Lots of our points are scored on transition. Our coaches do a lot to prepare us.”
Churchill coaches Eng and Chan review tape with the team and scout opposition to set up the Bulldogs for success.
“What really helped as well is that we have a deep bench, players who can step up. We’re not depended on one player on our team and that makes us so tough to play because we have several payers that need to be guarded,” said Eng, who is also an assistant coach with the Langara Falcons women’s program, where her dad Greg runs the program.
The senior boys from Churchill made history of their own last season when the won the B.C. championship. The girls are forging ahead, too, said Rae.
“What’s really encouraging is that we get to use this year as warm up even though we already did have a really encouraging result. Next year we’re going to be able to build even more on what we have together as a team.”
The Bulldogs enter the AAA Lower Mainland zone tournament as the No. 1 seed out of Vancouver. They must reach the top three to advance to provincials.
The Bruins advance to the AA zone tournament, also as the No. 1 Vancouver team.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Feb. 11 print version of this article attributed Rae's comments to Eloise Faehndrich. We regret the error.
