Burnaby South 2019 champs

Vancouver’s St. Patrick Celtics and Kelowna’s Dr. Knox Falcons are the respective top seeds for the upcoming 2020 Junior Provincial Invitational Tournaments.

The junior boys get underway on Saturday (February 22) and wrap up on Tuesday (February 25). The championship game will be played at 7 p.m.

The junior girls take the court on February 26 and go until February 29 with the championship final set for 10:30 a.m.

Both tournaments are set for Langley Events Centre with R.E. Mountain Secondary and Peter Ewart Middle School serving as secondary sites for the junior girls’ championships.

The Burnaby South Rebels are the defending junior boys’ champions and they enter the 2020 tournament as the No. 12 seed.

St. Patrick placed fourth in 2019. Another Vancouver school, the Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs are the second seed while the Kelowna Owls and Walnut Grove (Langley) Gators are seeded third and fourth.

The rest of the field (in alphabetical order) has Abbotsford, Belmont (Victoria), Brookswood (Langley), Carson Graham (North Vancouver), Centennial (Coquitlam), Charles Hays (Prince Rupert), Claremont (Victoria), Dawson Creek, Dover Bay (Nanaimo), Elgin Park (Surrey), Enver Creek (Surrey), Fleetwood Park (Surrey), Gladstone (Vancouver), Guildford Park (Surrey), Handsworth (North Vancouver), Holy Cross (Surrey), Lambrick Park (Victoria), Langley Christian, Lord Tweedsmuir (Surrey), Oak Bay (Victoria), Okanagan Mission (Kelowna), Prince George, R.E. Mountain (Langley), Summerland, Terry Fox (Port Coquitlam), Valleyview (Kamloops) and Vancouver College.

There will be a new girls champion in 2020 with Terry Fox not among the 24 teams in the field but the 2019 finalist Kelowna Owls are back and enter as the second seed behind their Kelowna rivals the Dr. Knox Falcons. The St. Michaels University Blue Jags (Victoria) and Brookswood Bobcats (Langley) round out the top four.

The rest of the field (in alphabetical order) features Belmont (Victoria), Brentwood College (Mill Bay), Claremont (Victoria), College Heights (Prince George), Duchess Park (Prince George), Fleetwood Park (Surrey), Heritage Woods (Port Moody),  Kalamalka (Vernon), MEI (Abbotsford), Mount Baker (Cranbrook), Nisga’a (Gitlaxt’aamiks), Robert Bateman (Abbotsford), Riverside (Port Coquitlam), Seaquam (North Delta), Sa-Hali (Kamloops), Seycove (North Vancouver), Sir Winston Churchill (Vancouver), St. Thomas More Collegiate (Burnaby), Walnut Grove (Langley) and Yale (Abbotsford).