They've done things the hard way before, but now the West Vancouver Highlanders senior boys basketball team is hoping to pave themselves a much smoother path on their way to the provincial championships.
Last season the Highlanders finished third in the four-team North Shore AAAA league, setting themselves a daunting path through the Howe Sound playoffs. Things got even harder — near impossible, most guessed — when they lost their first game of the double-knockout playoffs. The Highlanders, however, never lost faith as they went on to beat the odds, winning four straight do-or-die playoff matchups to claim an improbable title.
West Van completed the run with back-to-back wins over top-seeded Handsworth. Jump ahead to this season and those same two programs took the floor Tuesday night to open league play for the 2014-15 season. The stakes were lower this time around but for West Van it was an opportunity to show that they were going to be a tough team to beat right out of the gates this season. They did just that, beating the Royals 58-53. It's a small first step but an important one for a team bent on getting back to the provincial championships. The first-place finisher in regular season play gets to host the Howe Sound playoffs and that's where the Highlanders want to end up, stated head coach Greg Meldrum in an email to the North Shore News sent from Vancouver Island where the team was taking part in the annual Victoria City Police tournament.
"We play very well at home and would love to host the Howe Sound playoffs," he said. "For that to happen we need to be ready for every league game. Anyone is capable of beating anyone, so we have to bring our 'A' game every night. . . . All year we've talked about 'Getting off the North Shore.' The winner of the Howe Sound playoffs gets an automatic berth to the provincials. We feel if we can get to the B.C.'s, anything can happen."
Meldrum knows what he's talking about. Last year he was the head coach of West Van's junior team — a squad that included many players from this year's Grade-11 heavy senior roster — and the team went on to win the provincial junior championship. Meldrum moved up with most of those players to the senior level this season and Tuesday's league-opening win was a good start.
"Any time you beat a quality team like Handsworth, it's a good result," he said. "We have lots of guys that can step up on any given night which makes us difficult to prepare for. In our 15 games to date, we've had six different high scorers. They're a tight bunch of kids who are unselfish and compete hard every night."
Meldrum, however, knows that the team will need to improve quite a bit if they hope to repeat as league champions.
"We've tried to be realistic about our expectations. . . . We're a young team so we've had some ups and downs," he said. "There's a lot of parity in AAAA this year and I think any team is capable of winning the North Shore."
In other AAAA league action Sentinel got their season rolling with a 74-55 road win at Argyle Jan. 8. The action continues this week with three more AAAA league games. Argyle will host Handsworth on Monday, West Vancouver will host Argyle on Tuesday and Sentinel will host Handsworth on Thursday. All games are 7:30 p.m. tip-offs.
