Wesmen work overtime to reach Canada West final

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/02/2024 (951 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The University Winnipeg Wesmen are heading to the Canada West men’s basketball final for the second consecutive year.

On Saturday night, Donald Stewart scored 20 points and grabbed six rebounds and Shawn Maranan added 21 points and a whopping 18 assists to lead the third-seeded Wesmen to a 103-93 overtime victory over the second-seeded Calgary Dinos in semifinal action at the conference playoff tournament being held at Investors Group Athletic Centre.

“We were struggling there to start the game, obviously,” Maranan told reporters. “Their pace caught us off guard a little bit. Their guards (Noah) Wharton and (Nate) Petrone were a heavy load to handle tonight. We were playing bad in the first half but it was a two-possession game… We knew we had to lock in on the defensive end to get back in this game and we did that in the second half.”

Stewart had two points at halftime while teammate Mike Mikhailov had four but finished with 16 points and seven rebounds.

“We like to feed the post inside and later on we try to create shots on the perimeter and I think we got them going a little bit, got them touches down low and it opened up a lot on the perimeter,” added Maranan.

Winnipeg will face the two-time defending champion Victoria Vikes in Sunday’s final, which is slated for 8 p.m. on the U of M campus. The No. 1 Vikes, who beat the Wesmen in the the final a year ago, knocked off the 12th-seeded Northern B.C. Timberwolves 80-68 to punch their ticket to the final. The winner of the final will earn an automatic berth in the eight-team U Sports national championship in Quebec City, March 8-10.

The Wesmen trailed by six points at halftime and staged a late rally, punctuated by freshman guard Karo Jaro’s three-pointer that gave Winnipeg an 84-80 lead with 1:15 left in regulation.

The teams went to overtime tied 84-84.

“I’ve said it all year, Kato does not look like a rookie out there,” said Maranan. “He looks like he belongs in this conference and this league and he just plays with a ton of heart. He’s not scared of anyone. I was telling him before he hit that big three in front of Calgary’s bench, ‘If you’re open, please shoot it because you deserve to be here.’”

Jaro finished the night with seven points, two steals, two blocks and three rebounds.

Malachi Alexander also had a big game for the winners, scoring 20 points and pulling down seven rebounds.

Nate Petrone led the Dinos with 26 points and eight rebounds while teammate Dylan Lutes chipped in with 16 points and seven rebounds.

Vikes 80 Timberwolves 68

Top-seeded Victoria rallied from a 33-28 halftime deficit to earn a chance for a third consecutive conference title.

Elias Ralph had 25 points and 12 rebounds for the winners, who also got 34 points and six assists from conference MVP Diego Maffia.

Maffia struggled early, missing his first 10 three-point attempts, before hitting five of his next 11 attempts from behind the arc to spark the Vikes rally.

The 12th-seeded Timberwolves, who had previously upset the fifth-seeded UBC Thunderbirds and fourth-seeded Manitoba Bisons en route to the semifinals, got 24 points and nine rebounds from forward Spencer Ledoux.

Chris Ross had 13 points and Evgeny Baukin added 12 more for UNBC.

UNBC and Calgary will play in Sunday’s third-place game at 6 p.m.