Western was the only road team to come up with an upset tonight as all three other favorites won reasonably comfortably. In Toronto, the Rams built up an early lead that got near 20 before 5'11" David Tyndale got going in the second half - Tyndale finished with 25 points. Led by the diminutive guard who got to the rim and knocked down all 3 of his 3 point attempts, York was able to get the game back to within 3 in the fourth quarter before 6'2" third-year wing Ola Adegboruwa imposed his will on the game late with several key buckets down the stretch including a big 3 that pushed the lead back up to 7 with about 3 minutes remaining. Ryerson mixed up their defenses, got points off their pressure and generally took good shots in the solid victory which allows Roy Rana's group to advance to the OUA quarter-finals at Carleton on Saturday night. In the other OUA East playoff game, 6'6" Warren Ward had 15 of his game-high 24 points in the first quarter as Ottawa rode out to a 15 point lead only to have Laurentian crawl back to take a 4 point lead into halftime as Ward sat for virtually the entire second quarter with fouls. The Gee-Gees then locked up the Vees after halftime, creating 8 turnovers in the third quarter alone in which they scored 30 points, getting top performances from 6'9" Louis Gauthier who had most of his 21 points after the intermission and a sterling defensive performance from underrated 6'3" wing Chris Anderson, who also chipped in with 12 points and several hustle plays diving for loose balls. Laurentian had alot of success getting the ball inside to big 6'8" Shavaan Sheldon (17 points) and a nice all round game from 6'6" Mike Hull (18 points, 9 boards). Slick shooting Isaiah Pasquale added 17 points including 3 3's but missed a key open look with about 2 minutes remaining and the Vees trailing by 7, which was the final dagger for Laurentian which lost 11 of their last 12 games of the season... In Waterloo, 6'6" Maxwell Allin had 9 of his 11 points in the fourth quarter as the Hawks held off the Gryphs 80-72. Allin came within 1 assist of a triple/double, adding 11 rebounds and 9 assists. The fiesty Gryphs led by 8 at 52-44 with 3 minutes to play in the third but Laurier, led by 6'5" Kale Harrison (game-high 23 points), finished the quarter on a 14-5 run and then scored the first 5 points of the fourth, taking leads as large as 8 in the fourth. It was 76-68 with 5 minutes remaining after an 11-5 Laurier run when Gryphs "d" stiffened as Laurier did not score another field goal until late in the final minute of play. Unfortuately, Guelph could only get the game back as close as 4. 5'11" Mike Petrella had 19 to lead Guelph, which finishes a wonderful season during which the Gryphs overcame numerous obstacles to come close to knocking off a team that was in and out of the Top 10 all season long.
Saturday's OUA Quarter-Finals:
Western at Lakehead
Laurier at Windsor
Ottawa at Toronto
Ryerson at Carleton
2 comments:
I think Carleton and Lakehead will both win easily. Windsor might get a challenge in the first half but they will pull away in the second for a 10 point victory. Ottawa has generally been playing better than Toronto the past month and I think they will pull the only quarter-final upset.
If Toronto loses to Ottawa, I wouldn't consider it an upset.
Quite frankly, Toronto has stunk the joint out most nights since league play resumed after Christmas break.
Toronto went 6-2 against the OUA West and besides Carleton were the only OUA East team with a winning record against that division.
The other teams in the east were struggling badly, including Ottawa.
Queen's, Ryerson, LU, York were all playing poorly and should have been easy pickings for Toronto.
Didn't work out that way.
Instead of romping through the east, Toronto went 8-6 and many of their wins were hardly impressive.
They even lost by 14 at home to Queen's, the worst team in the league not named RMC.
So if Toronto loses it's no big shock.
in fact, their only hope against Ottawa is that the Gee Gees beat themselves, like they almost did against Laurentian
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