MBB | Voyageurs Squeeze Past Gaels
The Voyageurs continued their winning ways on Saturday night when they edged the Queen's Gaels by a score of 86-82.
It was a see-saw battle between both teams in the first half. The Gaels, recognizing the importance of containing star forward Kadre Gray, implemented double-team defensive coverage from the get go. This allowed Gray to find his teammates who scored effectively to give the Voyageurs the lead. One noteworthy play came from Sam Ivey who drove into the heart of the defence beautifully for a layup and accrued a foul as well to earn a chance for a three point play. Unfortunately though, he missed the resulting free throw but the Voyageurs finished the quarter on a 5-0 run to earn a point lead going into the second quarter. Curtis Gordon led the way with 8 points on 3-4 shooting with two made three point buckets.
The Voyageurs pulled away in the second. They shot 41.2% as a team, as compared to the Gaels' 26.7% shooting. The Voyageurs were led by Gray, Litha Ncanisa and Joseph Hlady to outscore the Gaels 21-13 and finish the half with a nine point advantage as the score line read 42-33.
But, the Gaels refused to go away. They shot 52.6% from the field in the 3rd quarter, led by Quinton Gray with 13 and Cole Syllas with 12 points respectively to outshoot the Voyageurs 28-20 and close the gap to just a single point at the end of the third.
Both teams, once again, went toe-to-toe in the fourth quarter. The Voyageurs survived a 50.0% shooting quarter from the Gaels thanks to some clutch three shots from Gray and Gordon late in the game. The Gaels opened a six point lead with 4:16 left in the match when Gordon stood up and drained a clutch three to cut the lead in half and then offensive efforts from Gray, Gaetan Chamand and Ivey saw the Voyageurs through with an 86-82 victory.
Gray was impressed with his team's effort down the stretch as evident by his post-game comments, "Very good game. Both teams made a run. Down the stretch, we put together some good stops and we came out with the win."
However, Kadre Gray also noted some areas where they need to devote more time and effort into in order to achieve greater success in his post-game comments: "We've got some stuff to work on. Definitely the defence. Ideally for us, we want to keep the teams under at least 60 [points] so we got to make sure that we lock in on the best players on the other team because we let Quinton go to work today so we got to make sure that we are working on our defense so we stop the primary guys."
The Voyageurs will now gear up to host the Windsor Lancers on Friday night. Tipoff is scheduled for 8pm at the Ben Avery Gym.
Wali Khan