The Burnaby Mountain Lions roared at the Crehan Cup AAA girls’ basketball championships.
The No. 9 seed and third-place BurWest league finisher threw a scare into its provincially ranked hosts Argyle Pipers before eventually falling 74-71 in an entertaining match-up on Monday night.
Down 19-9 after the opening quarter, Mountain picked up its game behind a 16-point first-half contribution from star guard Jacey Bailey and remained a thorn in the side of the Pipers right up to the final buzzer.
“Our coach said, ‘It’s not the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog,’ and that’s what we did,” said Bailey after the game.
Bailey, who was named to the women’s national age group assessment camp last year, led all scorers with 33 points, including seven-of-eight free throws, and 13 rebounds.
Lions teammate Alix Gabriel added 25 points, including 15 points in the final quarter. Gabriel was good on 11 of 15 from the charity stripe.
Argyle’s Sophie Swant had 30 points.
In other quarter-final action, No. 4 New Westminster Hyacks were upset 64-50 by Sir Winston Churchill.
The Hyacks left too many points on the floor and were sadly out-rebounded by the smaller Vancouver city champions.
The two teams traded point for point throughout the opening half, but it became evident as the game went on that New West’s missed shots in close and few second-chance opportunities might well become the eventual storyline.
“Usually we’re better. Maybe we had some nerves,” said Madisen Obrovac, who posted a team-high 16 points.
Burnaby South also lost, falling 56-49 to No. 3 seed Handsworth in the late game. Ana Lukic had 20 points for South, 16 coming in the second half.
