Kings 84 Rustlers 58
The RDC Kings have enough offence to compete with the best teams in the Alberta Colleges Men’s Basketball League this season.
But to be where head coach Clayton Pottinger wants the defending champions to be it will likely come down to defence.
The Kings showed a bit of that defensive ability in an 84-58 victory over the Lakeland College Rustlers in the iHotel Fall Basketball Classic at RDC Saturday.
“It was a good defensive effort for four quarters, it was our best defence top to bottom all weekend,” said Pottinger.
“We’ll continue to work on that, but we’re blessed in that we did a lot of things right, but also still have a lot of things we can work on.”
The Kings never trailed against the Rustlers, leading 21-9, 39-30 and 65-41 by quarters.
“It was the first time we’ve seen a zone defence this year and it took us a while to get used to it,” said Pottinger, who also rested point guard Lloyd Strickland and forward Dallas Hancox.
All 12 players dressed saw a good deal of playing time.
“The guys have turned in a lot of hard work and it’s nice to get them some playing time,” said Pottinger. “This is the last week for exhibition games and next week we’re into the real deal and we’ll likely go with a bit of a shorter lineup.”
Strickland will be back in as the Kings open league play Saturday at The Kings University College Eagles in Edmonton.
Ashaunti Hogan led the Kings with 15 points while Clay Crelin added 13, Matt Johnson 11, Mari Peoples-Wong nine, Taner Parrington eight and Reece Gavin seven.
Parrington is the latest addition to the team. He was at the University of Saskatchewan, but after arriving in Saskatoon he changed his mind and called Pottinger about transferring to RDC.
The Kings will have star forward Rob Pierce back once his classes start at Christmas while six-foot-10 Daniel Brandt of Germany is scheduled to arrive in Red Deer later this month after getting his visa acceptance straightened out.
He’ll practice with the team and join the roster at Christmas.
In other tournament games on Saturday, Lethbridge downed Keyano 82-65 and Olds beat the Canadian University College of Lacombe 76-49.
On Sunday, Lakeland beat CUC 107-61 and Lethbridge downed Olds 80-58.
l In women’s play the RDC Queens lost 69-48 to Kwantian Polytechnical College and 69-58 to Capilano College to complete a trio of exhibition games in Vancouver.
Hockey Kings 3
Griffins 1
EDMONTON — The RDC Kings completed their ACAC weekend doubleheader sweep over the Grant MacEwan University Griffins with a 3-1 victory Saturday. The Kings won 8-2 Friday in Penhold.
“We played well once again,” said Kings head coach Trevor Keeper.
The Kings led 2-0 and 3-0 by periods, before falling back into more of a defensive shell in the third period.
“We lost two defencemen in the third period, so we didn’t forecheck as much and used more of a trap and played a little more defensively,” explained Keeper, who lost both Blair Mulder and Kirsten Odendaal.
Odendaal received a hit to the head, but also reinjured his knee, while Mulder was slammed into the boards from behind and received a major concussion.
“Blair didn’t remember the game, or even coming home,” explained Keeper.
“He has an appointment with the doctor early this week, so we’ll see what comes out of that.”
Odendaal is expected to be back for Friday when the Kings host Concordia University College at 7:15 p.m. at the Penhold Regional Multiplex.
Brett Wold opened the scoring on the power play at 10:11 of the first period for RDC with Mike Marianchuk connecting at 14:51. Mulder added a power play marker at 13:09 of the second period.
Clayton Petrie picked up assists on both power play goals and was named the RDC player of the game.
Netminder Kraymer Barnstable was credited with 36 saves, allowing only a third-period goal by Kyle Scraber. Riley Feser had 21 saves for GMU.
Cross-country
CAMROSE — RDC’s Devin Woodland turned in a solid performance to finish sixth overall and second among college runners at the ACAC’s Grand Prix No. 4 cross-country race Saturday.
Woodland, the defending ACAC champion, had a time of 26 minutes 53 seconds in the eight-kilometre race, just 26 seconds back of Edwin Kitany of Lethbridge, who placed third overall and first among ACAC runners. Open runner Cliff Childs won the race in 25:51.
Noah Arychuk of RDC was 29th overall and 10th among college runners at 29:43 while Tyler Nelson was 67th and 31st, at 26:55.
On the women’s side, Jordanna Cota of RDC was 18th overall and eighth in the ACAC competition with a time of 20:52 in the 5km run.
Open runner Jessica O’Connell was first at 17:42 with the top ACAC runner, Vanessa Trofimenkoff of Grant MacEwan, fifth at 19:26.
Emily Maplethorpe was 15th in the ACAC ranks and 30th overall for RDC with a time of 22:10 while Samantha Debree placed 40th (22nd against ACAC runners) at 22:47. Laura Friesen was 44th (24th) at 23:09 and Catherine Alcorn was 47th (25th) at 23:39.
RDC was fourth in the team standings with 69 points while SAIT had 31, Lethbridge 37 and MacEwan 49.
The ACAC championships go Oct, 26 at Concordia in Edmonton with Canadian finals, Nov, 9 in Toronto.
drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com