VANCOUVER - It was a seesaw battle for the first 25 minutes between the Winnipeg Wesmen and UBC Thunderbirds on Friday night, but the 'Birds got a late spark from their bench and pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 98-81 victory at War Memorial Gym.
Craig Sharp's basket with 4:18 left in the third put the Wesmen in front 57-56, marking the ninth lead change of the game. But
Nathan Yu came off the UBC bench shortly after and made sure when his team regained the lead on the next trip down the court, the game's tenth lead change would be its last.
Yu had two points to his name when he entered the game late in the third, but had nine points and a steal to finish that quarter, and another nine points in the fourth, to ignite the UBC offence and allow the home side to pull away.
"Offensively he really gave us that boost," said UBC head coach
Kevin Hanson. "We are trying to get the guys to get their energy from playing solid defence and getting stops, but it seems like this crew really starts to play harder when we start flowing offensively, and I thought he was a huge spark for us."
As dominant as the T-Birds were late in the game, they were getting all they could handle defensively at times from the Wesmen, who were shooting the lights out early on.
Winnipeg hit 14 three-pointers on 40% shooting in the game, with eight of those coming in the first half. Lynden Drayton-Barrow and Nick Lother were the main culprits, shooting 5-for-10 and 4-for-8 from three point range respectively.
"They really extended us and shot some real deep threes," said Hanson. "After the third quarter those two guys were three of six, and four of those six makes were a few feet behind the line so that really extended us. We knew they would shoot some of those early shots and we talked about transition defence and kept our hands high, but give them credit for making some pretty tough shots."
It was a safe bet on Friday that any shot Winnipeg took would either find the bottom of the net or the hands of UBC's
Kamar Burke. He led all players with 19 rebounds, 17 of those coming at the defensive end, while also adding 17 points and five assists.
"He didn't start the last couple weeks but he had a good week of practice and put some extra time in," said Hanson. "If he is going to keep rebounding like that he will get a lot of minutes. He was huge for us at the defensive end."
Josh Whyte led the T-Birds with 20 points and six assists. Yu chipped in 18 of UBC's 42 bench points.
Lother paced the Winnipeg attack with 24 points , while Drayton-Barrow had 22 to go with nine rebounds. Nolin Gooding also had a strong game, with 15 points, seven boards and seven assists.
The T-Birds move to 5-2 with the win, while Winnipeg drops to 1-3. The teams will get another shot at each other on Saturday night at War Memorial Gym, with tip-off scheduled for 8 p.m.
-30-
