VANCOUVER – Bouncing back from their quarterfinal loss the previous night, the UBC Thunderbirds defeated the Queen's Gaels in a shootout to advance to the consolation final, set for Saturday afternoon.

Six T-Birds scored in double figures in a well-rounded effort, led by Fareed Shittu who was named the UBC Player of the Game with 20 points, eight rebounds and two blocks on highly efficient 8-9 shooting. Nikola Guzina shot 7-9 from the field for 14 points while Adam Olsen notched 18 points, six rebounds and three assists.

"The boys got in the flow, they started to feel it," said Thunderbirds head coach Kevin Hanson. "Once we started to play like we wanted to win instead of playing not to lose we played better."



Luka Syllas and Ollie Engen scored a combined 47 points for the Ontario side, as the two teams made a total of 24 three-pointers on the day.

The squads were tied 7-7 early on, before an 8-0 UBC run keyed by buckets from Olsen and Micah Jessie pushed the T-Birds out in front. Back-to-back triples from Gus Goerzen continued the perimeter barrage for the 'Birds, followed by a big dunk from Shittu and putback from Victor Radocaj to make it a double-digit lead.

The Thunderbirds took a 31-24 lead into the second quarter, and they continued to fire away with Nylan Roberts hitting a three followed by an and-one from Olsen.



It was in this quarter that the two teams proved accurate the old adage that basketball is a game of runs, as the 'Birds went up by 15, before the Gaels made a push to cut the deficit to just six, before a counterpunch from the home team put them back up by 14.

The score stood at 63-50 for UBC at the half, with the blue and gold shooting a scorching 10-19 from the outside.

The T-Birds earned their biggest lead of the night midway through the third, when a Shittu bucket on the inside followed by an offensive rebound and putback from Guzina put them up 21. UBC remained comfortably up by double digits for the entire frame, before Queen's made a push early in the fourth.

The lead shrunk to just eight points with seven and a half minutes to play, before Shittu responded with a big three to take back some momentum. Guzina pulled off a highlight play, grabbing a defensive rebound and going coast-to-coast for layup to make it 98-84. The T-Birds crossed the century mark with a Goerzen corner triple and cruised to the finish line from there.



With the victory, the Thunderbirds have booked their spot in the fifth-place game, where they will take on the Concordia Stingers at 1:00 p.m. (PT) on Saturday.

"It's always better to end the season with a win than with a loss," added Hanson. "You want to win the game, you want to give guys experience, and you want to reward the seniors that are graduating. There's a lot of factors that go into it, but the bottom line is when that ball gets tossed you want to win."

The Stingers have shown well in the tournament to this point, following a hard-fought quarterfinal loss to the top-seeded Ottawa Gee-Gees with a win over RSEQ rivals Bishop's 81-66 in their consolation semifinal.