Best of the West, the Kelowna Owls are not. Not on Saturday night, anyway.
The Harry Ainlay Titans of Edmonton employed a balanced attack to play spoiler by beating the host Owls 91-85 in the final of the 39th annual Interior Savings Western Canada Basketball Tournament at Kelowna Secondary.
The Owls, coming off a 66-61 semifinal victory over the Pitt Meadows Marauders in a battle of B.C.'s best teams on Friday night, missed an opportunity to become only the second KSS team to win the prestigious home tournament. That place in history still belongs to the 1982 squad, whose members watched anxiously as the clock counted down in Saturday's inter-provincial showdown.
In the end, Alberta's top-ranked Titans were just a touch better than the Owls, ranked No. 1 in B.C. with the goal of becoming only the third team from outside the Lower Mainland to win a provincial championship this spring.
On Saturday, though, all that mattered was winning the game at hand, and KSS came up short.
It wasn't for lack of effort and Kelowna's best players certainly came to play, with Mitch Goodwin hitting for a game-high 37 points and Braxston Bunce scoring a double-double with 25 points and 15 rebounds. Only three other Owls reached the scoreboard, including John Katerberg's contribution of 15 points, while Harry Ainlay's supporting cast and depth was the difference.
The Titans had twice as many players chipping in offensively, with 10 scoring at least two points and five in double-digits, led by Lyndon Annets with 22 points.
Harry Ainlay, which led 45-40 at halftime, also had an answer for almost every KSS basket.
The Owls trailed by as many as 10 points with only three minutes left, at 84-74, but never gave up and closed to within 84-82 after a Goodwin three-pointer. That 8-0 run restored the energy level of a packed house at KSS, but the home side couldn't capitalize on that momentum to net the equalizer or go-ahead basket.
Amid the madness, the Titans managed to regroup and play with composure in the dying seconds to hold off hard-charging KSS.
In the third-place game on Saturday afternoon, Pitt Meadows downed the White Rock Christian Warriors 58-45. Pitt Meadows entered the tournament ranked No. 2 while White Rock, which fell 87-83 in its semifinal against Harry Ainlay, is an honourable mention in B.C.
In consolation play, Kitsilano beat Balfour of Regina 41-39 to finish in fifth place, while the St. Francis Browns of Calgary beat the Tamanawis Wildcats 57-52 for seventh.