The games didn’t all end with the results head coach Mel Bishop wanted, but some star individual performances highlighted a solid weekend outing for the Charles Hays Secondary senior boys’ basketball team.
Playing three games in the No Regrets Basketball Tournament in North Vancouver from Dec. 10 - 12 and another single game against the quad-A No. 4 ranked Kitsilano Blue Demons, the ’Makers played top-tier basketball against the province’s very best and held their ground.
Last Wednesday, the Rainmakers played Kits in an exhibition game and fell 91-64.
“We gave them a run. We started that game [down] about 18-2. That killed us [coming] right off the plane,” said Bishop on Monday.
The game signified a trend that would prove to be the Rainmakers’ achilles heel all week, when the team gave up the ball too often.
“We hung in there. There were too many turnovers in the game. Generally in the whole tournament, we were just not looking after the basketball,” said Bishop.
The first game of No Regrets (formerly named the North Shore Invitational) saw Charles Hays, ranked sixth in triple-A hoops by the Vancouver Province, take on Surrey’s Queen Elizabeth Secondary and emerge victorious 65-51.
“We’re a double-A sized school playing up in triple-A. We’re [normally] playing up a division, and this tournament, all our games were against [the very top-tier] quad-A teams,” said Bishop.
The next two games saw the Rainmakers fall to Surrey’s Lord Tweedsmuir 71-66 despite leading for a good amount of time in the contest, and then lose to West Van Secondary 54-45. Turnovers became an issue.
“I thought if we looked after the basketball, we would have done a little bit better, gotten a couple more wins, but we turned it over ... Some of the teams already had zone defences in there,” said coach Bishop.
Justin McChesney was an offensive monster, posting 31 points against Kits, 42 against Queen Elizabeth and 40 against Lord Tweedsmuir, along with reaching double digits in rebounds. Nick Campbell, Quinn Leighton, Cole Marogna and Aiden Bull also contributed to the score sheet, posting a range of six to 12 points each game.
However, in the game against Queen Elizabeth Leighton hurt his knee and was sidelined for 2.5 games.
- With files from William Gye