Nearly three months of hard work all came unravelled in two quarters of basketball for the Delta Pacers and South Delta Sun Devils on Wednesday night in Surrey.
After battling their way to favourable post-season positions thanks to impressive regular seasons, both senior boys teams stumbled out of the gate to open the Fraser Valley Southwest League playoff tournament.
The Pacers, second place finishers in league play with an 8-2 record, squandered a nine point halftime lead and were shocked 85-80 by the seventh place Elgin Park Orcas.
Not only did the South Surrey win just four of 10 league games, it dropped a 9844 decision to Delta back in January.
The Sun Devils had a much tougher task against the North Delta Huskies, in a quarter-final match-up between a pair of 7-3 teams. However, they handed their northern rivals a 20-point loss a week earlier and enjoyed a 38-24 lead at the half. That's when North Delta sharpshooter Noman Saleem came to life, hitting five threepointers over the final two quarters as his team cruised to 68-56 win.
The results mean the two local teams can finish no better than fifth when the tourney concludes today at Tamanawis secondary. Both will also now be facing very difficult do-or-die round of 32 games when the Fraser Valley Championships tip off next Wednesday.
"Both of us are going to be taking the long road," said South Delta head coach James Johnston. "The good thing about the Valley is you play tough games all the way through and you have to be ready for big games. We need to refocus then see what happens."
The Pacers performance came just min-utes after they had been listed 18th in the Province newspaper's final top 20 regular season rankings. That status was based on an improving young team that had produced some impressive wins and hung tough with other highly regarded opponents. Yet, that squad failed to show up against the Orcas and, even with a halftime lead, head coach Scott Masse felt his team was vulnerable.
"All year long we had an underdog mentality and we fed off of that," he said. "Perhaps that escaped us a bit. As soon as you take winning for granted, it can vanish on you."
Masse suggests his team might have been looking ahead too much to a potential semi-final game against White Rock Christian and he promptly put the blame on his shoulders.
"If I can't demonstrate the type of preparation and intensity required for games at this time of year then I can't expect my kids to as well," he added.
"It's very disappointing and whether we like it or not, we sort of now have that underdog mentality imposed on us heading towards the Valleys. We are going to have to fight for our lives every minute."
The Sun Devils have struggled to put 40 minutes together against quality opponents all season and Wednesday was another good example.
They looked like a provincial ranked team in the opening half but simply didn't have an answer when the Huskies came out firing to start the third quarter.
"We knew they could shoot the ball and hit the threes," added Johnston. "I think we missed a little on the execution side on defence. When they got close, that's when we needed to bear down and play defence and we didn't do that.
"Some nights its just not your night and I don't think I can pick out any one guy who had a good game."
mbooth@delta-optimist.com
