Burnaby Central Secondary is in a position to contend for its first-ever B.C. AAAA senior girls' basketball championship.
The Wildcats are seeded fifth for the 2024 provincials running this Wednesday, Feb. 28, to Saturday, March 2, which is on par with their initial preseason ranking last November.
The red and white, ranked second at last year's tournament, claimed the bronze medal — Central's first known medal in the girls' AAAA division since 1948.
This time, the Cats will be on the hunt for a better medal colour as well as a banner, and most likely with a chip on their shoulder.
Burnaby Central fell to Riverside Secondary of Port Coquitlam 82-72 in the Fraser North regional final, played at Simon Fraser University (SFU) last Sunday, Feb. 18.
Before that, the Cats won the Burnaby-New Westminster banner in a 78-31 victory over St. Thomas More Collegiate.
Riverside is the top-ranked team for this year's provincials looking to go back-to-back after defeating Central in the 2023 semifinal and Walnut Grove in the title game as the three seed.
Argyle (North Vancouver), Seaquam (Delta) and Okanagan Mission (Kelowna) are the second-, third- and fourth-ranked schools respectively.
The Wildcats will be led by all-star Ankita Chopra, who signed with the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) Cascades for the 2024-25 U SPORTS campaign.
Central is set to play 12th-seeded Lord Tweedsmuir (Surrey) to open the AAAA provincials on Wednesday, 1:15 p.m. on the south court at the Langley Events Centre.
On the AA side, St. Thomas More Collegiate is in the same position as it was last year.
But this time, they'll look to land a medal of their own after claiming the Fraser North AA senior girls basketball title in an 89-32 rout over Archbishop Carney (Port Coquitlam).
The Knights are also ranked fifth going into the 2024 B.C. basketball championships, which also starts Wednesday. They finished seventh at the end of the 2023 campaign.
STM will tip-off against 12th-ranked Kalamalka Secondary (Coldstream) on Wednesday at 1:15 p.m. in the LEC Fieldhouse.
Meanwhile, Burnaby Mountain Secondary, ranked 17th, is currently competing at the B.C. junior boys provincials in Langley.
The 32-team invitational started Saturday, Feb. 24, and runs until Tuesday, Feb. 27.
