VANCOUVER – It was a hard-fought battle in the consolation final at the INDOCHINO U SPORTS Final 8, and when the dust settled it was the eighth-seed Concordia Stingers who emerged victorious on the back of some incredible outside shooting.
Alec Phaneuf was the danger man, as he scored a career-high 31 points on 10-17 shooting. Jaheem Joseph (19 points, three steals) and Owen Soontjens (12 points, five rebounds) each hit four three-pointers as that veteran trio carried the Stingers offensively.
Gus Goerzen was named UBC's Player of the Game as he tallied an efficient 17 points and four rebounds off the bench. Fifth-year senior
Brendan Sullivan recorded 18 points, eight rebounds and four steals (all team-highs) in his final game as a Thunderbird.
UBC's three other graduating players –
Fareed Shittu (11 points and six rebounds),
Victor Radocaj (nine points and two blocks), and
Micah Jessie (five points and four rebounds) – all started the game as Thunderbirds head coach
Kevin Hanson gave his seniors a nice send-off at War Memorial Gym.
It was Sullivan who scored the 'Birds first five points of the contest, off a driving lay-in and a catch-and-shoot triple. Concordia, though, started out hot from the outside, led by Phaneuf who scored 19 points on perfect 7-7 shooting in the opening frame.
Looking to match the offensive outburst from the visitors, UBC retaliated with a number of triples of their own. The two teams combined to shoot 13-24 from beyond the arc and just 5-11 inside it in the first quarter, with the Stingers up by five.
Concordia's shooting began to cool off slightly in the second, as the T-Birds slowly clawed their way closer after trailing by as many as ten early on in the frame. A pair of Goerzen triples from the left corner followed by a layup in traffic from Jessie put the score at 46-44 in favour of Concordia at the halftime break.
Radocaj started the second half with a nifty up-and-under reverse layup, before a Goerzen midrange jumper gave the T-Birds their first lead of the game. Buckets from Sullivan and Jessie stretched the lead to seven as the T-Birds held the Stingers scoreless for the first four minutes of the quarter.
Once again though, Concordia came alive and embarked on a 12-4 run of their own to retake a slim lead. The two teams settled from there into a more grind-it-out type rhythm, forcing some tough shots and battling hard for each loose ball.
The score stood at 60-59 for the RSEQ side heading into the fourth, which began with Shittu picking off a pass and sprinting the length of the court for a transition layup. A step-back triple from Sullivan put his team up by five midway through the final period, followed soon after by a jumper from
Adam Olsen.
But while the home crowd thought their team might be in the clear, consecutive triples from Soontjens made it a one-point game, followed by another from Junior Mercy to take the lead with three minutes to go.
The barrage continued with Phaneuf, Joseph and then Soontjens again all hitting from the outside in the final two minutes, as the Stingers shot 7-8 from deep in the fourth and 17-34 for the game overall. That gave them an insurmountable lead as they earned the program's best finish at the U SPORTS Final 8 since 2007.
While it's not the end to the year that the Thunderbirds were hoping for, they can hang their heads high after finishing 15-5 in the regular season and earning Canada West silver, their best conference playoff finish since the 2019-20 campaign.
The Final 8 marches on with the medal games on Sunday. The men's side of the bracket features No. 1 Ottawa facing No. 6 UPEI for bronze at 10:00 a.m. (PT) at War Memorial Gym, and No. 2 Calgary and No. 4 Victoria playing for gold at 1:00 p.m. (PT) at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
