Persistence paid off for the Chemainus Secondary School Cougars senior boys basketball team.
The Cougars played a challenge game Friday at a neutral site, Alberni District Secondary, against Campbell River Christian for the final berth into the single-A Island championships and posted a 70-54 victory.
“We were happy about that,” said coach Kyle Peruniak of the victory. “We didn’t play our best, but we played good enough to win, rallied in the fourth quarter.”
“First half we were a bit iffy,” conceded Cougars player Darius Thomas. “Second half, we were finishing stronger.”
Chemainus consistently trailed by a margin in the range of five points throughout much of the game heading into the last quarter.
“We threw a full-court press on them and finally took over,” Peruniak observed.
He felt his team should have been able to handle Campbell River Christian just by making a comparison of personnel. That’s why the games are played, but Chemainus eventually won out.
“It took a while to get there,” said Peruniak.
Alex Loewe and Patrick Wang accounted for half the team’s offense with 18 and 17 points, respectively. Wang also recorded seven steals.
The Cougars only had seven players available for the game and just enough bodies to put on the court after two fouled out.
The team will likely only have the same number of players for the Island tournament at Ucluelet, running Thursday through Saturday.
The first game will be a tough test against host Ucluelet, the top-ranked team in the North Island. Eight teams are taking part in the tournament and, no matter what happens, it was a big accomplishment for Chemainus to qualify in its first year back in the senior ranks.