Men’s Basketball Hunting a Medal with ¼ Final Win

Windsor, ON – The St. Clair College Men's Basketball team (9-2) qualified for the OCAA Final Four Championship with a resounding 100-75 win over Algonquin College (Ottawa) Saturday afternoon at the SportsPlex.  The Saints have guaranteed themselves no worse than a medal game for the first time since they won a Bronze in the 2005-06 season.  St. Clair will face Redeemer University College (Ancaster) Wednesday at 8:00pm with host Humber College (Etobicoke) taking on Lambton College (Sarnia) in the other semi-final.  The medal games will be played on Thursday with the next best finisher to Humber advancing to the Canadian Collegiate National Championship already qualified as host of that event also. 

In Saturday's win over Algonquin the Saints started slow and allowed the visitors to gain as much as a 5-point lead in the early stages on some good perimeter shooting.  But St. Clair righted the ship and wound up with a 26-23 lead heading to the second quarter.  The Saints increased their advantage to 46-36 by halftime and steadily pulled away the remainder of the game. 

St. Clair used their depth to outscore Algonquin 29-27 in points off the bench while capitalizing for 24 points off 22 turnovers.  The Saints were also benefactors of 52 points in the paint and only needed to make two triples in the contest while shooting 45.2% from the field overall. 

St. Clair's David Gomez Jr. (Pontiac, Michigan) led his team with 24 points while adding 6 rebounds and 4 assists in the win.  Chad Vincent-Simon (Scarborough, ON) netted 19 points for the Saints to go with 7 rebounds.  Jalen Harmon (Ypsilanti, MI) was perfect from the floor (5-5) and the free throw line (4-4) to record his 14 points adding 5 rebounds for St. Clair.  Miles Hall (Toronto, ON) chipped in with 10 points for St. Clair to round out the double-digit scorers for the Saints.  Darnelle Peddie (Pickering, ON) had a notable 10 rebounds along with 8 points for St. Clair. 

Algonquin's Simon Desta (Ottawa, ON) hit six triples on his way to 26 points but reached the foul limit in a losing effort.