UVIC VIKES 93 - P.E.I. PANTHERS 92
The best players don’t just live for these moments, they crave them. Guard Diego Maffia, the Canada West MVP and leading scorer in the country, coolly hit a three-point shot with 30 seconds remaining to save the top-ranked University of Victoria Vikes in a 93-92 thriller over the eighth-seed University of Prince Edward Island Panthers on Friday night at Scotiabank Centre in Halifax, N.S., in the U Sports men’s basketball quarter-finals.
“Diego had missed a few before that but shooters need to have short memories and be fearless,” said UVic head coach Craig Beaucamp.
“He has done that all year.”
The winning basket gave the slithery and lethal Maffia 40 points on the night.
The Atlantic conference runner-up Panthers had plenty of time for their own winning shot, but were denied by a staunchly determined Vikes defence.
“We did what we have been being all season — being resilient and finding a way to get a result,” said Beaucamp.
“We have been in so many games like this where we just find a way and tonight we had to find a way. It’s about surviving and advancing. And we advanced.”
But it wasn’t easy against a Panthers team (16-3 in regular season and playoffs) making its first appearance at nationals in two decades.
“As expected, seeding means very little at nationals, where everybody is good. UPEI was a formidable team and a really tough team to guard with all their small guards moving around quickly,” said Beaucamp.
The Atlantic champion and the fourth-seed St. Francis Xavier X-Men of Antigonish, N.S., outscored the wildcard-berth and fifth-seed Queen’s University Golden Gaels (19-7) of Kingston, Ont., 107-98 in the other quarter-final on UVic’s side of the bracket.
The Vikes (21-3) and X-Men (20-3) meet in one national semifinal game today at 4 p.m. PT that will present a different sort of challenge than the Panthers.
“SFX is not as quick as UPEI but is a strong athletic team that is formidable on the boards,” said Beaucamp.
“We have to re-focus. As with tonight against the Panthers, the X-Men will be the crowd favourite here in Halifax.”
UVic led 53-47 at the half. The Panthers tied it 77-77 early in the fourth quarter and UPEI pulled ahead and led 82-79 with six minutes remaining.
Rookie Izzy Helman, out of Claremont Secondary, added 15 points for UVic and sophomore Elias Ralph 10 points, with rookie Renoldo Robinson adding 11 points. Fifth-year forward Dominick Oliveri was held to two points but his 14 rebounds were critical for the Vikes.
Elijah Miller of the Panthers, who joined Maffia on the All-Canadian first all-star team, led UPEI with 24 points with his equally water-bug quick teammate Kamari Scott adding 32 points.
In the other quarter-finals, the Carleton Ravens dynasty also survived a scare by a team making its first-ever appearance in the national tournament. A three-point attempt at the buzzer by the Quebec-champion and sixth-seed L’Université du Québec à Montréal Citadins (12-7) missed to allow the Ravens (21-5) to escape with a 73-71 victory. Carleton has won 16 national championships since 2003, 10 of the past 11, including the last three in a row.
The No. 2 University of Ottawa Gee Gees (21-5) defeated the Canada West runner-up University of Winnipeg Wesmen (17-7) — making their first national tournament appearance in nearly three decades — by a 91-70 count to set up today’s all-Ottawa semifinal match-up at 2 p.m. PT against the cross-town rival and third-ranked Ravens.
The championship game is Sunday at 2 p.m. PT. All games are being webcast live on CBC Sports.
Fans had to evacuate the Scotiabank Centre earlier in the day Friday. Organizers said it was due to “a fire alarm, caused by construction work, which impacted a sprinkler system unrelated to our venue. There [were] no safety concerns.”
The Vikes came back into the building to survive another alarm, this one caused by the upstart Panthers.
UVic is after its first national championship since 1997 when led by forward Eric Hinrichsen, the Campbell River product, who went on to represent Canada in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.
The Vikes are after the ninth national championship in team history. UVic won seven consecutive in the 1980s with rosters that included Craig Higgins, Kelly Dukeshire, Phil Ohl, Ted Anderson, Dave Sheehan and Olympians Eli Pasquale, Gerald Kazanowski and Greg Wiltjer.
