Men’s Basketball Come up Short in Classic

Windsor, ON – The St. Clair College Men's Basketball team played well in a great OCAA contest Sunday afternoon at the SportsPlex but came up short in a 94-86 double overtime loss to Humber Polytechnic (Etobicoke).  West Division leader and undefeated Humber (12-0) increased their gap over 2^nd Place St. Clair (10-2).  The matchup was possibly the biggest game of the CCAA season which pitted the some of the country's highest ranked teams against each other with Humber coming in at #2 nationally versus St. Clair who was listed at #4. 

Humber built a small cushion of 22-18 after the first quarter and took firm control with a 12-point advantage midway through the next frame eventually holding a 45-35 intermission lead.  The Saints made up the ground in the third quarter overtaking the visitors 61-57 entering the fourth thanks in large part to Mazin Tiea (Windsor, ON/Kennedy) who contributed 12 points during the stretch on nearly perfect shooting from the field (4-of-5) and the line (4-of-4).  An early triple in the fourth put St. Clair ahead with their largest lead of seven points and the differential was equaled a few minutes later but Humber played to within a possession the rest of regulation.  Humber tied the game at 74-74 on a foul line jump shot with 36 seconds remaining and each team traded missed 3-pointers which meant overtime would decide the outcome. 

St. Clair's Darnelle Peddie (Pickering, ON) caught fire in the extra period making three long balls which allowed his team to take a pair of 6-point leads.  But Humber answered late with a triple and a pair of free throws to make it 86-86.  Open possessions by each squad in the remaining seconds forced another overtime session where the Saints were unfortunately held scoreless as Humber salted the game away at the three-throw line.

While the teams made nearly the same number of triples (Humber 9, St. Clair 10) in the game the visitors shot nearly 39% from the floor while the Saints converted under 34%.  St. Clair was outrebounded 52-40 and outscored in the paint 38-30 but did score 22 points after forcing 20 Humber turnovers. 

Tiea took full advantage of the extra time to produce a St. Clair individual performance for the ages scoring a career and game high 32 points while adding 17 rebounds and a remarkable 8 blocked shots.  Peddie finished with 19 points for the Saints to go with 5 rebounds while Amari Frye (Ypsilanti, MI) was the set-up man with 9 assists but was held scoreless.

St. Clair travels to North Bay this weekend to face Canadore College in a 1pm tip time on Saturday at their campus gym.