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Pacers head to Chilliwack for final Fraser Valley tourney

New zone next year will see Delta schools with Surrey and Richmond
basketball
The Delta Pacers are at GW Graham Secondary in Chilliwack on Thursday and Friday for the regional rounds of the Fraser Valley AAA Boys Basketball Championships.

The last-ever Fraser Valley Boys AAA Basketball Championships gets underway Thursday and it might just be the Delta Pacers’ best chance to get back to the provincial tournament in a while.

The 16-team event will offer five berths into next month’s championships at the Langley Events Centre. There’s the usual assortment of teams standing in the Pacers’ way including top 10 ranked North Delta (No. 3), Rick Hansen (No. 7), Clayton Heights (No. 8) and GW Graham (No. 9), however, Delta has proven to be competitive with most of them and will at least be in contention for the final spot.

The Pacers will be the No. 4 West seed after finishing league play with a 5-3 record. They will be heading all the way to Chilliwack (hosted by East winner GW Graham) to take on the No. 5 Eastern League team in round of 16 play. Regardless of the result, they will be back again the next day in the double knockout tournament.

Those long treks for playoff tournaments will be no longer starting next season when B.C. School Sports increases the number of zones in Greater Vancouver from two to four.

Delta schools will be part of a new Fraser River South Zone with Surrey and Richmond.

The other three zones will include Fraser Valley East (Langley, Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Mission, Fraser Cascade), Fraser Valley North (New West, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows) and Vancouver Whistler (Vancouver, North Vancouver, West Van, Sunshine Coast, Sea-to-Sky).

It also means provincial berths will be spread out among the new zones based on school sizes. Surrey is the biggest district in the province but loaded with teams (17) that will play at the 4A tier for large schools, compared to just three at the 3A tier.

Throw in two from Delta (Pacers, North Delta Huskies) and six from Richmond — which adds to potentially just 11 schools in the new zone for the 2019-20 season. It would equate to no more than three provincial berths.

Adding to the smaller window is the Richmond League featuring impressive depth in recent years with Richmond High, McMath, MacNeill, Steveston-London and McNair all taking turns in the provincial rankings since 2016.

As tough as the task may be for the Pacers this week, the road to the Langley Events Centre will not be any easier starting next season.