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PHOTOS: Terry Fox Secondary claims first BC AAAA senior girls basketball title in all-PoCo final

Ravens survive battle with Rapids to bring home the 2022 blue banner.
Kyle Balzer
Kyle Balzer

Redemption earned for the season — and from 2020.

Terry Fox Secondary got over the hump of losing to Riverside in a big tournament final in the 2021-22 season, and it was the all-important one.

The Ravens gave it their all to edge their crosstown-rival Rapids by a score of 77-75 to bring home the trophy from the 2022 BC AAAA senior girls basketball provincials Saturday night (March 5).

"It's been a great year [...] our top players stepped up and played phenomenal tonight and they played phenomenal last night to get us here," Ravens head coach Mike Carkner said in a post-game interview with the Tri-City News. 

He was also named coach of the tournament.

"And so, you need that when you get to this level. You're playing games against great, great teams and your best players have to step up and ours certainly did. They were fantastic."

For Alisha Weloy, a Grade 12 guard, she waited two long years to have another shot at a provincial title after Terry Fox lost in a heartbreaker to Semiahmoo in 2020.

She was Grade 10, but was named the tournament's most outstanding defensive player.

Weloy tells the Tri-City News it was relieving to return and feed off the fans' energy to capture the trophy.

"It was hard to wait a long time to play, but right when we got on the court, I think we felt like we got the momentum again, and with the crowd cheering again, it just brought us all back into the game."

She, along with Ana-Marie Misic and Lauren Clements — the most valuable player at the 2022 AAAA provincials — are headed to the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) next year to suit up in Canada West action with the Cascades.

Weloy contributed seven points in the finals for the ravens and believes the lessons learned in her senior year will be beneficial going into the fall.

"It's nice to have the coaches believing in more and all of us. Knowing that like, even though I make mistakes, it won't make me a bad player. Everyone makes mistakes. And you just got to overcome that."

Clements posted 17 points in the final, and totalled 102 in four games, including 45 in the semi-final against Okanagan Mission.

Misic was named player of the gold medal game after dropping 21 points for Terry Fox, and was named a first-team all-star.

Cerys Merton received the best defensive player honour and a second-team all-star.

It marked the third time this year that both Port Coquitlam schools met each other in the finals of a tournament.

Terry Fox lost to Riverside in the Fraser North regionals prior to the B.C. championships, as well as the 2021 Tsumura Basketball Invitational.

With the victory of the number-one seeded Rapids, the Ravens finished with a perfect 4-0 record in Langley.

On Friday night (March 4), the Ravens upset the number two-seeded Okanagan Mission Huskies out of Kelowna to reach the gold medla match.

Their game-by-game results were as follows:

  • 77-75 win over #1 Riverside
  • 83-76 win over #2 Okanagan Mission
  • 94-51 win over #6 Abbotsford Senior
  • 77-32 win over #14 West Vancouver

Riverside finishes with a record of 3-1 in settling for silver.

Meanwhile, Heritage Woods Secondary finished 12th at the 16-team senior provincials.

The Kodiaks matched their tournament ranking after amassing a record of 1-3.

The Port Moody school also finished 21st in the 24-team BC junior girls championships, completing a record of 2-2.

The senior boys basketball provincials are set for next weekend, March 9 to 12, also at the Langley Events Centre.