Holding a 7-6 lead going into half time, Fraser Valley battled with the Thompson-Okanagan A team and earned a hard-fought 15-14 victory in the title game.

Kate Macleod, Fraser Valley head coach, was happy that her players took home the 3-on-3 boys’ basketball crown.

“It was just so exciting for these kids to be here and to be part of this whole experience,” Macleod said. “It wasn’t really about the gold or the winning or the losing, this is a developmental program and the 3X3 game is designed perfectly for that and so, the satisfaction for me is seeing, in such a short time, how much the kids improved.”

For Jacob Mand, he was happy with the gold medal and with the Games overall. He was complimentary of the Thompson-Okanagan.

“They were really good,” said Mand. “They really toughed it out during the beginning. We started to score a bit but their point guard (Benjamin Hitchens) he came back with a lot of shots. We had to close out and make sure he didn’t have those (shots).”

The fact Thompson-Okanagan A fought hard in the gold medal game wasn’t lost on head coach Rob Neid either.

“If we could just have one more shot fall for us; we felt we were a better shooting team and we hit some shots but we missed two that would’ve made a difference,” Neid said. “They (Fraser Valley) were really quick and big so that was their advantage and I think that was the difference in the end.”

Hitchens, whom Neid said played his best basketball in the gold medal game, said the game was there for the taking.

“We had a few chances at the end to take the lead but it didn’t work out for us,” Hitchens said. “They played the better game and it just didn’t go our way.”