North Delta Huskies are hoping to become the City’s first high school basketball team to win a provincial championship in 29 years of league play.
The Huskies advanced to the 3A title game with a thrilling 62-61 semi-final victory over the Duchess Park Condors and now face the Vernon Panthers with the tip-off set for 6 p.m.
North Delta was the last City team to win the title in 1990 that saw eventual NFL Superbowl kicker Mitch Berger on the roster as well as being a first team Provincial all-star player.
Head Coach of the squad that season was Bill Edwards, who is a member of the Delta Sports Hall of Fame and current Assistant Coach this year.
Watching from press row Sportswave Media saw Suraj Gahir manage a 3-point shot with a mere two seconds on the clock, missing an earlier lay-up.
As one might expect following a T/O Delta coaching staff’s game plan was to commit a pair fouls sending Tupper to the free throw that saw them converted on one-of-two attempts, giving the Huskies the ball.
This set the stage for Delta’s (Gahir’s) impressive finish as he alone managed to finish with 28 points (game high) and 15 rebounds, while Atker added 12 of his own.
The Prince George school managed to grab 34 three-pointer shots and managed to hit 29% of the shots taken at the hoop.
The Huskies will face a much different No. 2 ranked Vernon team tonight that uses its length and athleticism to do much of its damage inside.
The Panthers managed a 85-65 win over the MacNeill Ravens from Richmond BC in the other semi-final match-up.
The final game feature an experienced North Delta team loaded with seniors, while Vernon has only one Grade 12 student.
North Delta head into the Championship as underdogs, but as everyone knows, never count anyone out until the final buzzer.
Delta opened a half-time score of 40-23 at the half managing to held off a late surge by Charles Tupper, who had several chances only to have them denied.
Interesting enough Delta’s Huskies have been ranked in the top three schools in the BC since the start of the season, but as we all know injuries can and will cause the demise of a team.
In Delta’s case this wasn’t the situation as they fought hard through injuries, eventually finishing 4th in the Fraser Valley playoffs and 9th at provincials.
Earlier in the week (Wednesday) they managed a 74-48 win over Byrne Creek, which was followed up by a 74-67 win over #1 ranked Charles Tupper.
They managed to control both the first and second half by scores of 20 – 11 and 20 – 12, while the second half saw Tupper outscore Delta by a 22 – 13 tally in both quarters.
The final shot for the win was with 2.0 seconds remaining following a foul that created a turn-over giving Delta the ball for the final points of the game.
While North Delta Huskies were the winning team on the court, the winners were their strong amount of supporters from the school.
Let’s not forget that it’s not just the students that are the winners, but rather the North Delta Secondary with teachers and School Trustees on hand cheering them on to victory.
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North Delta’s Delview Raiders were the last city team to reach the championship game, albeit dropping the 2015 BC 2A final to St. Michael’s University in a heart-breaker game.
