The Capers pulled away midway through the third quarter, building leads as large as 19 to run away from the X-Men before a large crowd at the Sullivan Center in Sydney. 6'3" Paris Carter was the offensive hero for the Capers, scoring 20 of his game-high 25 points in the second half and also did a wonderful job on X's 5'10" Christian "T-Bear" Upshaw defensively, holding the defending AUS POY to only 4 of 16 shooting. Upshaw was back in the lineup after sitting out Saturday's X loss to Dalhousie for violating team rules by missing an academic commitment and finished tonight with only 12 points including zero for 6 from downtown.
6'5" Phil Nkrumah had 21 points and 10 rebounds and 6'2" Jimmy Dorsey added 18, the only two other CBU players in double figures as the Capers led by only three late in the third but then scored the final 9 points of the quarter to lead by 12 before icing the game early in the fourth with a second barrage of 3's. Cape Breton had taken a 29-20 lead after one on the heels of 7 3's in the first quarter alone.
6'5" Jeremy Dunn bounced back from a lacklustre performance against Dal on Saturday with 19 points (4-6 3's) and 9 boards, getting particular praise from Capers coach Jim Charters, to lead five X-Men in double figures. 6'9" Alberto Rodriquez added 15 for St. FX while sharpshooting 6'0" guard Charlie Spurr (14 points) got loose for three of his four 3's in the first half when X was able to cut a 9 point first quarter disadvantage down to only 5 at the half at 43-38. 5'9" Will Silver put forth his usual workmanlike effort, putting pressure on the d getting into the lane and had 10 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists. X also had 6'4" Dwayne Johnson in the lineup for the second time as he recovers from a concussion sustained on Oct. 28th against Guelph.
The Capers, who improved to 7-0 on the season and handed X their second consecutive loss, went 28-40 from the free throw line and also got a tremendous effort off the bench from 6'5" Al Aliovic, now the sixth man, who hit a pair of threes and added a dunk.
X coach Steve Konchalski was impressed with the Capers, commenting "Cape Breton took it to us tonight. They are a much better team than what they showed in the pre-season", but also lamented the early season momentum that his team appears to have lost. "We are not playing with the energy and enthusiasm of earlier this season and we need to get that back to be successful."
Both teams shortened their benches for this high-energy, top level affair as the Capers basically went only seven deep with Dorsey, Carter, Nkrumah, Scott Jaspers-Fayer, Tremaine Fraser, Aliovic and Tavon Nelson, who showed he can contribute in these types of games. The X-Men played 10 guys however only 7 played more than 10 minutes.
X travels to the island to play at UPEI for a pair of games this weekend.
See also T.J. Colello's article in the Cape Breton Post.
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