The Hornets played in their 5th straight valley championships finals this past weekend. The team got a wake up call last week in their zone championships when they lost to Maggie 78-74. This forced the team into a do or die game against OK Mission of Kelowna which they soundly defeated 88-55. A full week of late night practices enabled the Hornets to prepare for their opponents.

The team entered the valleys as the as 7th seed their lowest seeding over the past 6 years. In their first game the hornets played Fulton of Vernon the #2 seed. The Hornets came out flying as they jumped out to 29-10 lead in the 1st quarter, and they never looked back as they cruised to a 74-51 victory. Gurk Dhaliwal had 17, while Amit Chahal added 11 and Jivan Gill and Parm Sidhu chiped in 10. The semi final was a rematch of last years final versus Sahali of Kamloops. The two teams had met twice this year and both teams earned a split. Sahali had nothing to lose really as they had already qualified for the provincials, but the Hornets on the other hand would guarantee themselves their sixth straight trip to the provincials with a win. Sahali jumped out to an early 9 point lead only to se that erased by half time as the Hornets led by 10, 49-39. Sahali was able to claw to with 4 at the end of the 3rd but the Hornets did not fold as they pushed the lead 20 before both coaches emptied the benches late in the fourth as the Hornets won 88-73. Gurk Dhaliwal poured in 29,and Parm Sidhu added 20 with Jashan Khela scoring 14 also in the win. The win meant the Hornets would be playing in their 5th straight valley finals game versus  # 6 ranked AA team Kelowna Christian, a team which had beaten the Hornets on all three occassions this year. The Hornets came ready to play as they took a 20-18 lead in the first quarter and then proceeded to score 30 more points in the second quarter to push the lead to 50-47. In the third quarter foul trouble started to catch up to the Hornets as they fell behind by one at the end of the third 72-71. The start of the fourth quarter proved to be costly for the Hornets as they missed their first 3 shots and KCS hit 3, 3 point shots to push the lead to 10. The Hornets fought hard but the closest they would get was 5 before the Knights were able to close out the game with a 96-84 victory. Amit Chahal poured in 28 points as he hit 5  3 pointers in the game, Malcolm Heinrichs added 16. Heinrichs has missed a whole month of basketball so the Hornets were very pleased with his play. Parm Sidhu and Gurk Dhaliwal added 11 each in the loss. Gurk Dhaliwal was named tournament all star and Parm Sidhu was named defensive player of the tournament.

The Hornets will play in the Annual Shoe game Monday February 25th at Pen Hi at 7 pm, before they head to the Provincials as OK Valley #2. They will open play at the Provincials against Vancouver Island # 3 Lambrick Park. The team is healthy and they are starting to gel into form, with a solid week of practice the team feels that anything is possible and they will to try to pull some upsets out of their hats. The Hornets head into the Provincials with a record of 20 wins and 12 losses.

Maurizio Basso