Season ends at Carleton
Hi everyone,
I know most of you follow our results through twitter or online and most now know our season ended last Saturday at Carleton. Thought I would sum up the last few games.
After our solid win streak, we hit a rough patch at Toronto and Ryerson. We ended up losing both games to two teams we had beaten at home. This was a setback in our quest for 2nd or 3rd place but we still had control of our 4th place finish. Our last two games were at home against RMC and Queen’s. RMC has struggled throughout the year and the game was never in doubt. Manny Pasquale went off for a ridiculous 38 pts in 14 minutes of playing time. I can’t tell you how many emails I received asking if the playing time was legit or a misprint. It was legit and great to watch. We took him off early in the third to which a staff member at Laurentian said to Jason Hurley that the CIS single game record is 50pts. Of course Jason didn’t miss a beat and responded, ” yes I know, I played in that game and the team still lost!” Alex Beeson scored 50 pts on us way back in 1995 (I think) but we still won the game by twenty points.
After the win against RMC, another win against Queen’s would guarantee us 4th place. They are a young team but can get hot from the outside. We had beaten them at Queen’s but didn’t fully secure the game until the fourth quarter. This game would be no different. It was seniors’ night and we honoured Isiah Pasquale, Mark Ramalho and Mike Hull. It wasn’t exactly the way we wanted to send them out but nonetheless we were able to grind out an ugly win. This meant we would host Toronto in the OUA East quarterfinal on the following Wednesday.
Toronto had just beaten us badly the week before at their place. A very good team with a balanced attack inside and out. This would be the first time in 12 years that the Voyageurs would host a playoff game. In 2003, we should have hosted with a third place finish, but that year all playoff games would be played in a tournament at Carleton.
Our Wednesday playoff game wasn’t great timing for our student fan base as the school was on reading week but the stands were packed anyway with local Sudbury community. Poised to take advantage of home court, the guys came out on fire. The intensity at both ends of the floor was potentially our best of the season. The defensive end in particular, they paid attention to the details and were are to stifle Toronto’s attack. Isiah Pasquale led the way with great full court defence and efficient scoring. Mike Hull was a force inside. Finished with another double-double 16pts, 14rebs. Mark Ramalho came in and gave some valuable minutes as well. This was the type of game you want to end your home career on. Now our reward for winning a home playoff game was to take it on the road at #1 Carleton. A tough task at hand.
We set out with a few ideas to try and hold Carleton’s offence to under their averages, while still being able to transition ourselves for some easy buckets. Scheming to come up with ideas but knowing full well we will have to get back to our basics and flat outwork them on every possession. It is an interesting predicament where everyone hopes you win but nobody really thinks you will. That is outside of our team. Everyone in our locker room believed we could and were going to win. If you don’t believe me watch the tape on www.ssncanada.ca . The intensity that exuded off every player throughout the game was great to see. The end result wasn’t what we had hoped for but everything that was in control was done to put us in a position to get the outcome we desired.
In the end, our record this year was 19-17 but our outworking the opponent record was 20-12-4.
Proud of this group of players. We had many challenges this year but as the season went on we improved. The last two games might very well have been our two best and as a coach, you can’t ask for more than that.
We will miss our three graduating players and thank them for sacrificing for the Voyageurs.
Next year we have a talented group coming back and one with more playoff experience. The sky is the limit for us moving forward!
