The Westview Wildcats hosted and won the first annual City Tournament on the opening event of the 2023-24 high school basketball season on the Dec. 2 weekend
The tourney was organized as a celebration of basketball in Maple Ridge, said Katie MacLeod of Westview.
She said six senior boys basketball teams from local schools competed in an exciting weekend of basketball, with close games in front of capacity crowds. Westview won after winning three straight games.
The single A Maple Ridge Christian Hornets upset SRT 65-63 on opening night, setting the tone for a weekend of unpredictable games between unfamiliar opponents, who do not get a chance to compete in Fraser North league play.
Players of the game were Eli from MRCS with 19 points, including four three-pointers, while James Kitsch from SRT scored 23 points.
Garibaldi beat Thomas Haney 85-68, as Lorenzo Rossi, a Garibaldi international student-athlete from Italy, led the offence with 42 points and 10 assists. Levine Punzalan of Haney scored 31 points.
Westview beat Meadowridge, and Wildcat Vojtech Kobierski scored 15 points and had 13 forced turnovers to win player of the game for his team, and Nathan Randhawa was the player of the game from Meadowridge
The second day saw SRT beat Meadowridge 55-39, led by POG Alex Popa with 19 points and six rebounds.
Westview beat Thomas Haney 69-41, and POG Alberto Hernando Bedoya, an international student from Spain, had 26 points and six assists. Haney’s Cayden De Wilde scored 13 points.
Garibaldi got past Maple Ridge Christian 73-69 led by player of the game Oleg Koptev.
On Saturday, Thomas Haney beat Meadowridge 78-52, and the players of the game were Aron Johnson and Andy Xu respectively.
SRT beat Garibaldi 72-67 and the POGs were Cole Blakeway of SRT and Ignacio Cejuela of Garibaldi.
Westview beat Maple Ridge Christian 76-44 in the final senior game, and the POGs were Sergio Usero Lopez, Westview and Caleb from MRCS.
“Good luck to all local teams in the 2023-24 season,” said MacLeod.
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