Westsyde holds rally to send off senior boys basketball team to provincials

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It’s been a challenging two years for amateur athletes. The last two seasons were interrupted several times by COVID-19 restrictions.

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For many of the players, this week’s provincial will be their first.

“We haven’t been to provincials since Grade 8, so we’re all really excited to go, and it’s most of our last years, so we want to win this thing,” said Hamilton.

Senior boys coach Chris Gremaud believes this group can win it all.

“We’ve got great size, we’ve got great skill. Obviously that’s why we play the games. Any given day we could play well, any given day we might not play well, but I don’t feel like we’re just physically not able to compete with these teams. I believe we have the personnel. I believe we have the character to win.”

Hamilton added, “We’ve had some good games against some good competition like the Okanagans, like Prince George. We’ve played some good teams and played pretty good against them, so I think we can do well. We think we have a good match-up for anyone. Our team’s big and long.”

The Whundas enter the AA B.C. championships as the No. 4 seed, winning the Okanagan championship on their home floor against the 10th ranked team in the province, Summerland, 101-41.

“You could just see the joy in the kids’ faces,” said Gremaud. “They’ve been dreaming about playing in front of their crowd for their entire life, then it was sucked away from them last year and it was taken away at the beginning of this season. So for them to be able to play in front of their home crowd for the Okanagan championships was amazing.”

Westsyde, like many Interior and Northern schools, didn’t get to play much Lower Mainland competition, but the Whundas feel like they’ll surprise teams.

“It’s just tough because we never got to go down to Vancouver and play any of those teams because of the Coquihalla closure and then obviously because of tournaments being cancelled for all of January,” noted Gremaud. “I’m not blaming anyone because the reality is nobody really knows what anyone looks like, but honestly we’re going to surprise some teams.”

Westsyde opens against J.L. Crowe from Trail at noon on Wednesday.

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