Kings close in on playoffs
Kings 76 Griffins 58
The RDC Kings went into the weekend with a good chance of making the Alberta Colleges Men’s Basketball League post-season, but only if they won their final two league games.
They took a big step in that direction with an impressive 76-58 victory over the Grant MacEwan University Griffins at RDC Friday.
“Everyone played well and contributed,” said Kings head coach Stef Labrecque. “They bought into the game plan and hopefully tomorrow (against Keyano at RDC) they play with the same passion and intensity. They’re starting to play our style of game.”
The Kings were full marks for the victory as they never trailed, leading 36-27 at the half and took control in the third quarter, outscoring the Griffins 24-11.
While the Kings did enough on offence to win, it came down to a solid defensive effort against a bigger team.
“Our defence has been hit and miss all season and as it is with younger guys and a younger team it’s sometimes easier to play defence when the ball is going in. Tonight it was a struggle at times in the first half, but the guys were committed and kept digging and digging.”
Labrecque did make a couple of changes to his starting five, using Adam Shaw at point guard along with six-foot-four RJ Wells. Both turned in outstanding efforts as Wells hit 23 points to go with four rebounds and three assists while Shaw had 12 points and four steals.
“We made a few adjustments as we felt it gave us a best opportunity to win in this situation,” said Labrecque. “The other guys really stepped up and bought into their roles.
“We’ve tried a lot of different keys to get through the door and tonight the key worked really well. They’re bigger than we are, but we fought hard.”
Wells and veteran guard Kendell Boese turned in the play of the game when Boese laid a perfect behind the back pass to Wells, who got the crowd off their hands with a spectacular one-handed dunk.
Boese, who is coming off a knee injury, was solid and dropped in 14 points to go with six rebounds and four assists. Eric Bakker had 15 points and 11 boards for his seventh double-double of the season.
The win left the Kings with a 7-10 record, which gives them a good shot at grabbing one of the wild card berths.
“I’m not 100 per cent sure what will happen, so we went into the weekend with the philosophy of winning both games and taking it from there,” said Labrecque.
Jeff Sampson led the Griffins with 14 points while Brett Whervin added 10.
Griffins 48 Queens 42
While the Kings playoff hopes received a boost the Queens hopes took a hit as they dropped a 48-42 decision to the Griffins, the second-place team in the north.
“This was a big game for us and with a win I thought we’d be in the running (for a wild card berth), but now we have to make sure we win tomorrow and see what happens,” said Queens head coach Dawn Smyth, whose saw their record dropped to 4-13.
“But I’m still proud of the girls, we competed with one of the top teams in the north, who have a number of provincial team players and several top scorers. We held them to under 50 points, which I’m sure hasn’t happened much this season.”
The Queens led 40-38 midway through the final quarter, but Kristen Monasterski hit a three to put the Griffins ahead to stay. The Queens had their chances down the stretch, but couldn’t buy a basket.
“We struggled, but there was a lot of contact that was let go and in terms of body size we didn’t match up with them,” said Smyth. “They’re significantly bigger and the officials thought there was no advantage in the contact but really they were getting an advantage because of their size and we were getting beat up. There were six to eight possessions in a row where there was no calls and they had an advantage there. As well we didn’t do a good job of creating things either.”
Still if the Queens don’t grab a playoff berth, which is slim, they can only look back over the season at the games they let get away.
“We had several games against teams we should have beat,” said Smyth. “If we played those games like this one we would have been OK.”
Lauren Loyek led the Queens with 13 points and 11 rebounds for her sixth double-double while Jessica Foley-Geldart and Katlyn Olsen both had nine points and seven rebounds. Monasterski had 13 points and 10 rebounds and Sarah Janzen 11 points for MacEwan.
l Foley received the Wayne Lalor Memorial scholarship . . . Queens tip off against Keyano at 6 p.m. with the men to follow.
drode@reddeeradvocate.com
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