For Britannia Bruins’ top shooter, Amanda Young, the best grad present ever would be a banner from the 2014 B.C. Secondary School Girls AA Basketball Championships.
The odds are against Britannia at the event, which starts today in Langley. All its players are under 5’11, and it is a relatively young team with only three Grade 12s — Young, captain Naomi Morcilla and forward Leena Yamaguchi.
The 13th-ranked Bruins face the forth-ranked Duchess Park secondary Condors from Prince George in the opening game.
But being underdogs is nothing new for the scrappy East Vancouver Bruins.
After they lost in the semi-finals of the Lower Mainland Zone tourney to the Windsor Dukes (44-60) and then lost to York House secondary (50-80) to fall to sixth spot, the Bruins girls fought their way in to the championships with a Feb. 25 wildcard win (64-57) against Qualicum’s Ballenas secondary Whalers.
Even getting to the game was a challenge. Originally scheduled for Monday, it had to be rescheduled for the following day due to heavy snow on Vancouver Island.
To get out the jitters of a make or break game, the team had a huge snowball fight just before tip-off.
It obviously helped.
Young, a forward, played a big part in the Island win racking up six three-pointers to be the team’s high scorer with 24 points. (Fellow Bruins JD Le and Julian Duong each scored 13 and Morcilla earned 12 points.)
Head coach Mike Evans said teams often underestimate the unassuming 5’8” forward, which works to his team’s advantage.
He thinks the fact the Whalers didn’t know much about Young’s shooting power prior to the wildcard game helped secure the win.
For the 18-year-old Young, the road to the B.C. championship has been a bumpy one.
She had two ACL surgeries, one on each knee. The last was exactly one year ago.
“It is just the hardest thing,” Young said. “But it just showed me how much I love the game and I stuck to it.”
Months of physiotherapy rebuilt her knees allowing her to come back and practise in November.
Because of her surgeries and rehab, Young played in only 16 full games of the team’s 35 games this season and missed some of the Lower Mainland tourney games.
When she is on the hardwood, however, her presence is felt. She averaged 15.3 points a game and hit 80 per cent of her free throws.
Doctors tell Young her rebuilt knees, once fully recovered, will be stronger than her originals.
That’s a good thing because Young, who said she never enjoyed high school aside from basketball, accepted a basketball scholarship for next year to Highline Community College in Washington State.
On April 1 she goes down to the school for a signing party, but first — the provincials.
Young and Morcilla were part of the Britannia team that won the provincial title in 2012.
Both girls, though the youngest on that squad, got court time during the final game, something both girls will never forget.
“That was definitely fun,” said Morcilla.
Morcilla described Young as a leader who through her resilience has shown the team how to battle through adversity.
She said Young encourages the team when they are down on the scoreboard to push on as if it were zero-zero.
Young laughed when she described how loud and passionate she gets during games.
“I yell a lot,” she said.
Evans said his team needs to bring their passion and speed against the taller teams, like the Condors and, of course, they need to use players like Young who can shoot.
But nothing his Bruins can accomplish would surprise him.
“It is a team that rises up, even when you think it is all over,” he said.
