The Burnaby South Rebels are learning what wearing a bulls-eye means.
The defending senior boys B.C. 4-A basketball champions met the Lord Tweedsmuir Panthers for the second time in a week, and nearly nine months after beating them in the provincial final.
This time, the result was different.
The Panthers upset the No. 1-ranked Rebels 82-77 on Saturday in the Tsumura Basketball Invitational final in Langley, just a week after Burnaby South handled the Surrey school by a 29-point margin.
It was a close game right into the final minute, as the two teams traded the lead during a hectic fourth quarter. The Rebels led by two with 5:19 to play but Lord Tweedsmuir corralled an advantage and salted it away in the dying seconds from the free throw line.
Baltej Sohal led South with 25 points, while Jiordano Khan contributed 20 points. Dropping 13 points apiece were Justin Sunga and Aidan Wilson.
In the semifinal, the Burnaby squad was pushed to overtime by the Terry Fox Ravens before emerging with an 85-82 victory.
They got 23 points from Khan and a big effort from Wilson in the win over Fox on Friday. It came hours after losing standout six-foot-11 post Sasha Vujisic to a broken finger in the team’s 77-74 win over Oak Bay, where Kyle Kirmaci and Khan led the scoring parade with 15 apiece.
Burnaby South opened the tourney with a commanding 85-69 win over Centennial, with Vujisic contributing a team-high 21 points.
It was the second straight tourney setback for the Rebels, who also finished second at the Heritage Woods Kodiak Klassic a week earlier, falling 65-63 to Calgary’s Bishop O’Byrne.
The Byrne Creek Bulldogs, meanwhile, tasted more elite competition on its travels at the Tsumura Basketball Invitational.
The No. 4-ranked squad of the 3-A circuit trounced No. 1-rated North Delta 76-52 to finish seventh overall.
That win, along with their showing against mostly 4-A competition in the tourney, saw the Bulldogs bumped to the top of the provincial ranking list, ahead of the Huskies.
Their four-game run included an 80-65 win over Charles Tupper, an 89-56 loss to Terry Fox, and a 78-68 setback to Oak Bay. Senior guard Bithow Wan led off the tourney with a 41-point game against Tupper, with Sufi Ahmed adding 21 points in support. The pair would tallied 15 points apiece in the loss to Fox.
The Bulldogs, runners-up at last year’s provincials, opened the Burnaby-New West league schedule Monday with a 73-49 triumph over Cariboo Hill. Next week they head to Abbotsford to participate in the Rick Hansen tournament, opening against Robert Bateman.
