Paul Langford has been here before.
As coach of the powerhouse Riverside Rapids girls' AAA basketball team, he has stood on the sidelines of the Capilano University gymnasium for several provincial championship.
But this week, Langford hopes to walk out of the B.C. tournament with something that has eluded his team the last several years: a championship banner.
"I think every time you get the opportunity, you have to make the best of it," he said. "They have had a good year and we just have to take it one possession at a time. They don't really remember anything that happened in the past."
With a win over Brookswood secondary in the Fraser Valley championship game last week, Riverside is ranked No. 1 going into the provincials, which start today.
But to make it the final game of this week's tournament, Riverside will have to defeat some tough competition. The Rapids will likely have to play Brookswood again and teams like Handsworth and York House will also be difficult to get past.
Still, Langford believes his team is well prepared for the big stage when they begin their quest for the championship banner on Wednesday.
"We have played at quite a few different venues on all different floors," he said. "We should be ready for this type of event."
Riverside is not the only Tri-City team competing in the 2012 High School AAA Girls' Basketball Championship. The Gleneagle Talons secured a berth in the tournament after making it to the final four during the Fraser Valley playoffs.
The Talons had a strong start in last week's regional tournament, with a 68-31 win over Walnut Grove in the first game. The Coquitlam team went on to defeat its crosstown rivals the Centennial Centaurs 58-30 before losing to Riverside 70-56 in the fourth game of the playoffs.
The Talons took fourth overall in the tournament in a nail-biting 49-47 loss to Yale secondary on the final day of the Fraser Valleys.
Port Coquitlam's Terry Fox secondary won fifth place in the regional championship followed by Centennial, which took the eighth spot.
