St. Clair Men’s Basketball Wins First National Medal

Etobicoke, ON – The St. Clair College Men's Basketball team fell short of a Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association title after a hard fought 101-94 loss to host Humber College Sunday night in Etobicoke, but the Saints returned home with their first national medal in program history after accepting their Silver Medals.

The Saints came out of the gate firing staking themselves to a small lead, but Humber responded with a 14-0 run in front of a packed home crowd that resulted in a 26-15 advantage heading to the second quarter.  Humber pulled away a little more before halftime and St. Clair went into the intermission facing a 57-43 deficit after giving up 31 points in the frame.  The Saints fell behind by 17 points early in the third quarter and spent the remainder of period inching closer outscoring the home team 27-24 but still trailed 81-70 entering the fourth.  St. Clair continued to mount their comeback moving to within three points (93-90) with 2:45 remaining in the game.  But some empty offensive possessions down the stretch didn't allow a happy ending for the Saints.

Aside from a slow fourth quarter Humber managed to shoot nearly 53% from the field overall in the game which included 10 made triples.  The Saints did make 9 from distance themselves but only managed to shoot 42.7% from the floor in the contest.  St. Clair had a decided disadvantage on the boards losing the rebounding war 57-41 in an otherwise entertaining and competitive game.

St. Clair's David Gomez Jr. (Pontiac, Michigan) almost single handedly willed his team to the win scoring a game high 37 points and was an easy Player of the Game selection as he added 5 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals.  For his efforts Gomez Jr. was named to the Championship All-Star team along with teammate Chad Vincent-Simon (Scarborough, ON) who scored 18 points to go with 6 rebounds and 4 assists in the final.  Jalen Harmon (Ypsilanti, MI) was the only other Saint to reach double figures after recording 15 points and added 3 rebounds.

Championship MVP DeQuon Cascart (North York, ON) scored 28 points to lead Humber to the victory and was joined on the all-star team by teammate Frank Mitchell (Toronto, ON) who registered a double-double with 20 points and 17 rebounds.

Earlier Dawson College (Montreal, QC) claimed the CCAA Bronze Medal after defeating Vancouver Island University (Nanaimo, BC) by a score of 99-74.