The New Westminster Hyacks limped to 12th place following the B.C. high school AAA girls' basketball championships.
The Hyack girls lost high-scoring team co-captain Ariana Sider in the opening game and next year's leader Amanda Zacharuk in Game 3 before finishing with a 1-3 record in the school's 40th appearance at the 63rd annual high school championships at Capilano University of Saturday.
The Hyacks were hoping to go out with a bang against Vancouver Island champion Oak Bay but could not matchup with the No. 4-ranked Breakers, losiing 76-43 in the battle for 11th and 12th place in the 16-team competition.
It doesn't really matter what place we came in. We lost three games. I'm a tough guy, I like perfection. It was OK," said Hyacks head coach Doug Woodward. "We came back after losing a tight game. But today at least we got everybody in. But our Grade 12s did not come out well."
No Hyack player was able to muster their best in the final matchup. Sharmaine Hayley had a team-high seven points and six rebounds, but it was not enough against the well-coached Breakers.
Emma Koloska led Oak Bay with 22 points, while point guard Ella Macquisten scored 12 of her 14 points in the opening quarter. Jill Cooper was also a tough matchup for the Hyacks, scoring 16 points and garnering eight rebounds and three assists.
Just the day before, New Westminster took honourable mention Gleneagle Talons to the brink before dropping a 52-51 heartbreaker to the Coquitlam school in the backdoor semifinal on Friday.
Down 21-8 after the opening quarter, New West outscored Gleneagle in the following two periods to trail the Talons 40-39 heading into the final 10 minutes of play.
New West took the lead three times in the final quarter - twice on plays by Meriam Ali, including one of four three-pointers by the Grade 11 guard.
But with just 35 ticks on the clock left in the game, Breanna Yee nailed her third trey of the game to put Gleneagle up by one.
Jaylen Canton had a shot at the buzzer, but it did not fall.
"It was our best game. We did some things well - we came from behind, and we were a bit unlucky," Woodward said.
New Westminster's only win was a 74-57 win over Prince George on Thursday.
Ali led the Hyacks with 24 points and 14 rebounds. Hayley also posted a double-double with 18 points and 14 boards. Jettie McLaughlin was one point shy of a double, scoring nine points along with her 10 rebounds.
The Hyacks had an unauspicious start to the tournament, losing 72-36 to No. 9-ranked Yale.
Sider, who was one-for-11 from the floor, left the game in the second quarter with a concussion.
"It's not the way I intended to finish my career in high school," said Sider after New West's loss to Oak Bay on Saturday.
But the individual setback allowed for some worthwhile moments for the talented guard.
Sider dressed for the final contest and started the game, taking the ball from the opening tipoff out of bounds.
The move also provided a nice response from Oak Bay who inbounded the ball back to a New West player.
Then with half a minute remaining in the game, Sider was given another chance to end her high school career with a basketball in her hands.
With just 33 seconds left in the contest, Sider subbed back into the game and took an inbounds pass to centre court to the round of applause from the Hyack faithful as the buzzer sounded.
"It's definitely something I'm going to remember," a teary-eyed Sider said.
