MBB | Voyageurs End Preseason with Trip to Montreal

The Laurentian Voyageurs Men's Basketball Team took the trip to Montreal this past weekend taking part in the Mcgill Classic Tournament. With a three game slate for the weekend Laurentian would match up against the UPEI Panthers, Mcgill Redbirds and Macalester College Scots from Minnesota.

Friday evening saw the Voyageurs face the UPEI Panthers in the first game of the tournament. Right from the start you could tell offense was on the mind of both teams. Laurentian had impressed for most of the preseason with their defense but in this one UPEI was able to unlock the Voyageurs unit with relative ease, giving themselves a first half lead at 56-49. Coming back out for the second half was more of the same as the Panthers kept finding ways to score. The final straw came as Laurentian was held to just 14 points in the 4th quarter allowing UPEI to run away with it winning 105-88. The Voyageurs standout performance came from Philippe Fandio who managed 23 points off the bench in just 26 minutes of game time. 

Saturday night was game two of the weekend and a matchup against the hometown Mcgill Redbirds. From the outset you could tell the Voyageurs defense had come out to play trying to make up for the lackluster performance the night before. As they limited the Redbirds to just 13 points in the 1st quarter and 18 in the second putting the game at 34-31 going into halftime. From there though it was the Laurentian offense that began to struggle, only able to put up 10 points in the third quarter and 19 in the fourth. The Redbirds on the other hand, found their stride as they would take the lead early in the third quarter and never look back going on to win by a score of 76-63

Laurentian's final game of the weekend was against Macalester College, a team from Minnesota in the USA. After dropping the first two games of the weekend Laurentian was poised to finish off the preseason on a high note. In this one the second quarter ended up being the difference as after being ahead by just 2 points at the end of the first, the Voyageurs led by 11 points in the quarter from Shawn Barthelemy outscored Macalester 27-12 into the break up 52-35. Laurentian in the second half was forced to hold on as Macalester came out guns blazing, cutting the lead down to single digits late. The Voyageurs though were able to hold on, coming away with a 73-67 win to end their preseason.

Laurentian will come home to host the Toronto Varsity Blues in their season opener on Friday night with tip-off from the Ben Avery Gym scheduled for 8pm in the Nickel City.

- Andrew Lemieux