Two Surrey boys are among basketball players shooting for a Jr. NBA title with their BC United squad.
The U14 team beat Calgary’s Genesis Basketball 83-59 in the final of the Jr. NBA Canada West regional championship at Langley Events Centre last Saturday (June 1).
Based in North Vancouver, the BC United team will now play for Canadian bragging rights in a tournament that runs from June 13 to 16 in Toronto. More details, including the schedule, are posted at worldchampionship.jrnba.ca.
The United roster includes Surrey-based players Oseghale Ehizode and Gurshan Sran, along with eight others from across Metro Vancouver. White Rock’s Marcus Flores Besseling is also on the team.
Ehizode scored 18 points to help BC United win the regional championship game at the LEC.
With a win at Canadian regionals, the team would advance to the Jr. NBA Global Championship, held from Aug. 6 to 11 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World, near Orlando, Fla. The event will involve a field of eight U.S. regional representatives and eight international regions, including Canada, in boys and girls divisions.
On the girls side at Canada West regionals, the VK girls team beat Genesis by a score of 83-28 to advance to nationals in Toronto.
Congratulations to our @jrnba u14s on winning the Western Championship! We are now off to Toronto for the Canadian @jrnba Nationals for a birth at Worlds! #BCUnited #BCsBest pic.twitter.com/AqWlyqMZoP
— BC United Basketball (@bcunitedhoops) June 2, 2019
In the boys’ game, BC United jumped out to a 19-6 lead after one quarter before Genesis cut the gap down to as low as five points early in the second quarter. The score was 35-26 at the half but BC United opened the third quarter on a 15-2 run and never looked back.
“We have been training for this,” Rupinder Dahia, who coaches the squad alongside Karlo Villanueva, said in a release from Ten Feet Sports and Entertainment Ltd/Langley Events Centre. “The boys are primed, they are hungry, the want to compete.”
The team of 14-year-olds goes “to war in practice every day, we go five-on-five against each other and just leave it all out on the court,” Dahia added.
Prior to this season, the LEC release notes, the BC United boys were scattered among a trio of basketball clubs (AthElite Basketball, 3D Basketball and Vancouver Sports Academy), before coaches decided to merge the three into one for a better shot at advancing in the Canadian regionals.
Said Dahia: “They all battled each other a couple of months ago at provincials. We decided to form a team to give ourselves a better opportunity to compete and show (the rest of Canada) what we can do.”
Other players on the United squad include Tarrence Booker (New Westminster), Andy Chen (Burnaby), Declan Cutler (North Vancouver), Brady Lau (Burnaby), Mikyle Malabuyoc (Vancouver), Arpan Sidhu (Vancouver) and Zachary Zapanta (Richmond).
Last year, the first for the Jr. NBA program, Surrey-based AthElite represented the West in the boys’ draw but came up short at the Canadian regionals.
• READ MORE:
Surrey basketballers fall short in Junior NBA Canadian title game, from June 2018.
VIDEO: Junior NBA title shot for Surrey-based basketball team.
tom.zillich@surreynowleader.com
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