The magic number for the Walnut Grove Gators was 45.
“We figure if we hold them to 45 (points), we will win every game,” said Chris Bertoia, coach of the Gators junior boys basketball team.
The coach’s rationale is that his team — which boasts multiple scoring options — should be able to score at least that many points per game.
“We are a small team playing small ball,” he added. “(For us), defence plus rebounding equals a championship.”
And that was true last week as for the second time in school history, the Gators captured the Fraser Valley championship banner.
They did so by allowing an average of 42.2 points per game over their five victories.
Walnut Grove — the top seed — beat No. 15 Pitt Meadows 58-40 in Saturday’s final at Terry Fox Secondary.
The Gators seized control with a 10-0 run in the first quarter to lead 14-5. They stretched the lead to 29-15 at the half and were up big, 45-20 after three quarters.
Tournament MVP James Woods led the way with 19 points. The Gators, as they have all season, used a balanced attack in the final.
Forward Luke Adams was named a first team all-star.
In the team’s other Fraser Valley games, they beat No. 32 Johnson Heights 58-39 in the opener and then defeated the No. 16 Mountain Eagles 57-39 to make the quarter-finals.
And in what Bertoia called the “game of the tournament”, the Gators needed overtime to beat No. 8 North Delta 54-49. The semifinals saw Walnut Grove defeat No. 5 Yale 56-44.
At the start of the season, Bertoia knew he had a good team: 11 of the 18 players are in Grade 10 and were part of last year’s squad which finished third at provincials.
For the first part of this season, Woods was playing up at the senior level. But once he was sent down to junior, the team has taken its game to another level.
“A kid like him makes a huge difference,” Bertoia said, adding that when the opposition designs a defence focused on stopping Woods, the guard has been adept at using his passing skills to set up teammates.
Overall, the Gators are 29-1 heading into the provincial championships at the Langley Events Centre.
Bertoia — in his first year as coach with Walnut Grove — said a large part of the team’s success comes from his assistant coaches, former Gators players Alfonso Ocampo and Gracjan Nokakowski.
The provincial tournament begins on Saturday (Feb. 27) and runs until March 1.
Walnut Grove, which is seeded second in the field of 32, will be one of two Langley teams in the field as they are joined by the Brookswood Bobcats.
The ’Cats open against No. 1 Handsworth on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. Walnut Grove faces St. Thomas More at 1 p.m. in their opening game.
Bertoia felt that Mountain could very easily have been a provincial-calibre team — they were eliminated with the loss to Walnut Grove — but the team did not get a very good seeding heading into Fraser Valleys.
“Their coaches have bought that team a long, long way,” Bertoia said.
Gary Ahuja
Walnut Grove Gators' Azino Urefe drives to the hoop against the Mountain Eagles during second round action of the Fraser Valley junior boys championships. The Gators captured the Fraser Valley title for the second time in school history.
