A dominant performance by Dominic Parolin still wasn’t enough to propel his Centennial Centaurs into tonight’s semi-finals at the BC High School boys AAAA basketball championships.
The second-ranked Centaurs were punted to the placement side of the tournament bracket by a 70-67 loss to seventh-seed Handsworth, Thursday at the Langley Events Centre.
Parolin scored 41 points and pulled down 16 rebounds, but it was a long way back to the rest of his teammates. Leif Skelding scored 13 points, the only other Centaur to hit double figures.
Despite opening the game with a 12-0 run, Centennial led by only six at the end of the first quarter, and that diminished to a 30-28 advantage by halftime. Handsworth outscored the Centaurs by one in the third quarter and then wrested the lead in the final frame.
In fact, the Royals didn’t just take the lead, they actually opened a nine-point margin before Centennial was able to claw some of that back.
While the Centaurs shot just 42.9% from the floor, that was still better than Handsworth’s 34.2% accuracy. It was three-pointers that killed Centennial as they connected on just five long bombs while the Royals amassed more than half its points from beyond the arc.
Centennial, which spent much of the season ranked second or first in the province, can now finished the tournament no higher than fifth.
