Four Nanaimo high schools will play at provincial tournaments March 8-11. Dover Bay is the top local team going in as the second seed in the 3A bracket. (Dover Bay Senior Boys Basketball)

By Dan Marshall

Basketball Provincials

Four Nanaimo schools taking part in BC high school basketball tournaments

Mar 8, 2023 | 12:15 PM

NANAIMO — Dover Bay, Wellington, John Barsby and Nanaimo Christian school are competing at the BC High School Basketball Championships.

There are four different brackets all being played from Wednesday, March 8 through Saturday, March 11 at the Langley Events Centre, including Dover Bay and Wellington competing in 3A with Dover going in as the second seed and Wellington ranked twelfth.

Coach Darren Seaman said his Dover squad finished their season 33-6 but have only lost once in 2023.

“It’s been a long time since our school has been to provincials. The program, the kids, all us coaches are really excited about it. We’ve spent a lot of time preparing mentally for this. Since day one we’ve been preparing for a championship game every game.”

Dover Bay has the late game at 8:45 p.m. on opening day against 15th ranked Caledonia.

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While Dover is considered one of the favourites, Wellington coach Luke Letham’s team is relishing an underdog role.

Letham said his veteran leaders will have to come up big for the team to have success.

“Jason Jung is our point guard and Kevin Taylor is a guard as well. As a 12 seed, we knew we were going to be in tough first game and Lord Byng has been ranked top five provincially all year.”

He added the tournament is as much of a learning and exposure experience as it is competition.

“You can go watch the quad-A games in the big arena bowl, so it’s quite the experience for the kids and it’s a goal they set back in November so to reach that goal and get there is quite the accomplishment.”

In the 2A bracket, John Barsby is the sixth seed.

The Barsby squad has an afternoon game on Wednesday against 11th seed Khalsa from Surrey. With a win they would advance to the play the winner of Pacific Academy (3) and Nechako Valley (14).

Nanaimo Christian School is the number four seed in 1A and has a chance to go deep in their tournament.

Ben Sijpheer’s team has already played their first opponent in the draw.

“We played Regent Christian at the B.C. Christian Schools tournament. We won that game fairly comfortably but we just have to keep our mindset that it is playoffs, everybody’s pushing for a win and anything can happen.”

They tip off at Noon on Wednesday.

Scores and schedules are available through the provincial championships website.

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