Aaron Mitchell came away satisfied with a fifth-place finish at the Bill Kushnir Memorial boys’ basketball tournament in Delta last week.
The St. Thomas More Knights avenged an earlier loss at their Chancellor varsity tournament to Sir Charles Tupper, edging the No. 2 AAA East Vancouver school 66-61 in the consolation final.
“The kids showed a sense of urgency and fight that we haven’t shown all year, which is nice to see,” said Mitchell.
Edward Ju scored 18 points for the Knights, while Aliab Ater had a solid outing against the Tupper Tigers, which has become a fierce STM rival in the past two seasons.
STM will match up against the Tigers for a third time this season, when they take on Tupper as the preliminary game to the University of British Columbia main event on Jan. 31.
The Knights opened the Kushnir memorial behind tournament all-star JJ DesLauriers’ 30 points in a 65-50 win over the host Delta school.
In the quarter-finals, STM fell behind early against quad A honourable mention Tamanawis, and although fighting back from a number of deficits, eventually fell 89-75.
The Knights bounced back with a big-time 81-79 victory over No. 7 Kitsilano in the consolation semifinal.
STM led by as many as 21 points against the Blue Demons, but hung on against its 4A counterpart.
“We got many contributions from different guys,” Mitchell added.
“We are starting to become a team with the weapons we thought we had. We just need to continue to compete together and sacrifice roles for each other to get where we want to go.”
No. 5-ranked Sir Winston Churchill won the tourney, outscoring Yale 95-90 in the final. Pitt Meadows, a close runner-up to Churchill at the school’s recent Air Show tourney, beat Tamnawis 76-59 for third place.
