A third-place finish at the Fraser Valley championships has advanced the Langley Fundamental Titans to provincials.
The Titans defeated the Pacific Academy Breakers in the bronze-medal game at the senior boys’ AA Fraser Valley championships last week (Nov. 14) at the Langley Events Centre.
“The bronze medal was not a disappointment,” said Titans coach Matt Lewis.
“All this means is that my team will be the underdogs going forward into provincials.”
Langley Fundamental had lost to MEI — who captured the gold against Langley Christian — in the semifinals.
All three teams were ranked in the top five provincially as of last week, with Langley Christian first, MEI third and the Titans ffith.
“I think the biggest difference was in the bronze medal game, we all knew we had to win to keep playing, so we had to dig deep to pull off the win,” Lewis said.
The provincial tournament runs Nov. 29 to Dec. 1 at the UBC Okanagan campus in Kelowna.
Lewis said the season has for the most part gone well, save for a few bumps along the way.
“My team is a very emotional team,” he said. “They play very well when being pushed by a good opponent, but seems to play down to a lesser teams’ skill set.”
The key for the team moving forward is all in their heads.
“We have tons of talent on the team, we just need to stay focused,” Lewis explained. “Also, not get frustrated with the simple things: they can’t keep worrying about the missed points, they just need to focus on the points and games to come.”
Michael Hsu was named an all-star.
•••••
Langley Fundamental’s junior girls team has qualified for the provincial championships this weekend. The Titans placed sixth over the weekend at the Fraser Valley tournament. That matched their pre-tournament seeding.
Avery Heppell was named a tournament all-star.
The B.C. championships will be held at Seaquam and South Delta.
The tournament runs Nov. 22 to 24.