The Burnaby South Rebels made no mistake in their Lower Mainland semifinal this time.
The varsity Rebels blew out Vancouver No. 2 David Thompson Trojans 91-48 in the championship semifinal of the Lower Mainland high school quad A boys’ basketball championships in Richmond on Wednesday.
With the win, South advanced to the final against last season’s Mainland runner-up and defending provincial 4A champion Sir Winston Churchill on Friday.
South made no secret of its intentions from the opening tipoff, starting on a 9-2 run and finishing off the first quarter with a 24-8 lead.
Nic Trninic did most of the damage at the low post, scoring 15 first-quarter points and finishing the game with a 24-point, 11-rebound double-double.
Tyus Batiste led all Rebel players with 25 points, nearly half of them in the final quarter. Batiste also had nine steals for South.
“We want to peak at the end of March. We’ve been working hard for the last seven years together. I couldn’t ask for anything else,” said Trninic following the game.
Last season, South lost its Mainland semifinal to eventual champion Vancouver College.
This year, the Rebel boys were determined to leave it all out on the hardwood.
“We lost in the semifinal last year. From the beginning of the season, we thought about getting back to where we were last year,” Trninic added.
South’s Jermaine Haley contributed 18 points and eight rebounds. EJ Mabone added 11 points, nine coming in the first half.
South will meet Churchill in the Lower Mainland championship final at the Richmond Olympic Oval on Friday. Game time is 8 p.m.
The New Westminster Hyacks failed to hold on to a 13-point lead and wound up on the losing end of a 68-63 outcome to the Windermere Warriors in the consolation 4A quarter-final.
Marcos Ramos pumped in a long-range trey to start the fourth quarter for New West, but Windermere’s player of the game Ravi Basra had other ideas, netting 17 of his game-high 37 points in the final stanza, to keep the No. 7 seed alive. New West was eliminated following the loss.
In Mainland AA ball, the Byrne Creek Bulldogs stayed alive with an 84-69 win over Steveston-London, while STM dropped its semifinal 75-61 to McMath.
Body Geoffrey led the ’Dogs with 26 points, while teammate Malik Holmes chipped in with 18.
“It was a great effort, a lot of hard work and discipline,” said Byrne Creek head coach Bal Dhillon.
No. 2 seeded STM, on the other hand, was at less than its best, allowing the Richmond school to steal the momentum following a 27-12 advantage in the third quarter.
“It was a whole bunch of things,” said a disappointed Knights head coach Aaron Mitchell.
“We had a terrible third quarter. We got down nine, took a punch in the mouth and didn’t hit back.”
Junior guard Cam Morris led the Knights with 20 points.
