Kings fall in OT
Kodiaks 74 Kings 69 (OT)
The RDC Kings still need one victory to assure themselves of finishing second in the South Division of the Alberta Colleges Men’s Basketball League.
They should do that next weekend when they visit the last-place Briercrest Bible College Clippers in Caronport, Sask.
However, the Kings could have made things even easier on themselves with a victory over the third-place Lethbridge Kodiaks, but instead they let one get away, dropping a 74-69 overtime decision to the Kodiaks.
The Kings sit with a 13-5 record while Lethbridge is 12-6. If the two should tie for second, RDC receives the edge because of three wins in four meetings with the Kodiaks this season.
Saturday wasn’t the Kings best effort of the season, especially offensively as they struggled to find any consistency after the first quarter.
The Kings grabbed a 23-11 lead after 10 minutes, before hitting only nine points in the second period. However, they still led 32-22 at the break and 47-38 after three quarters.
“We had the game in control and blew it,” said Kings head coach Craig Behan. “We didn’t do a good job moving the ball and creating offence. Defensively we did a fine job, although in the overtime we let things get away a bit.”
The Kings struggled through most of the fourth quarter and trailed 60-57 in the dying seconds. However, Andrew Cassidy nailed a three with 3.6 seconds left to put the game into overtime. But for the most part the extra five-minute period was controlled by the Kodiaks, who led 72-64 at one point.
“They (Kodiaks) did a good job of double and even triple teaming us and we didn’t do a good job moving the ball out of the double team and setting up again,” added Behan. “That’s just basic fundamentals.”
The Kodiaks double teamed RDC’s top scorers — Randy Davis and Billy McNutt — for most of the game, although Davis did finish with 25 points — 13 of which came in the first quarter. McNutt had 14 points, including seven in the extra period. McNutt finished with 13 rebounds and Davis added eight. Connor Fairbanks came in off the bench to chip in with eight points and seven boards.
Fifth-year guard Ndale Philbert led the Kodiaks with 23 points, including a pair of free throws in the final seconds to salt away the victory. Logan Mendenhall added 16 points for Lethbridge.
The Kings played without star guard Adam Shaw, who is out with the ‘flu.
“We missed him, but the rest of the guys did a good job stepping up,” said Behan. “But it did take away some scoring and shortened our bench.”
Despite the loss Behan wasn’t overly upset.
“We’re still OK. They’re a tough team and after we won Friday they wanted this one bad.”
Kodiaks 81 Queens 49
The RDC Queens still made too many mistakes to beat the Kodiaks, who are ranked No. 1 in Canada, but for at least for one quarter they stayed with them, outscoring the Lethbridge crew 18-15 in the final quarter of the 81-49 loss.
“We calmed down a bit when we had the ball and did a better job of limiting the turnovers,” said Queens head coach Dawn Smyth. “We also had better spacing on offence. When we do that we have a little more success. It just shows the girls how disciplined they have to be.”
The Queens saw their record drop to 1-17 while the Kodiaks sit at 17-1.
Still the Queens do deserve a pat on the back for not laying down.
“We could have approached this game in two ways,” said Smyth. “Either we could have just handed it to them, or we could come to compete. To our girls credit they worked hard until the end.”
Trudie Lefurgey led RDC with nine points and four rebounds while Aly Bowd chipped in with seven points and Megan Wiggins, Austin Jones and Shelby Hauck added six each. Bonnie Smith had 17 points, Anne Mercer 15, Natalie Johnson 12, Nadine Adams 11 and Kayla Lambert 10 for the Kodiaks.
l Graduating players Bowd, Wiggins and Cherish Esau were honoured following the Queens game . . . If the Kings finish second they’ll likely host Lakeland College of Lloydminster in a best-of-three quarter-finals series Feb. 27-29.
Contact Danny Rode at drode@reddeeradvocate.com
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