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Exhibition: Huskies defeat X-Men 71-66 to capture 2009 Shoveller title
HALIFAX, NS - The Saint Mary's Huskies defeated the CIS No. 3-ranked StFX X-Men 71-66 Sunday in front of 1,200 fans to capture the 19th annual Rod Shoveller Memorial men's basketball tournament title at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Four SMU players reached double figures, led by 18 points and nine rebounds from fifth year forward Ikeobi Uchegbu. Dartmouth's Mark McLaughlin added 16 points, Joey Haywood (Vancouver, BC) scored 12 and Miguel Pink (Whitby, ON) had 11 for the Huskies, who were 4-2 in the first half of the Atlantic University Sport regular season.
The X-Men, 5-0 in regular season play, had a 31-27 edge at halftime and were ahead 52-51 after the third quarter.
The fourth quarter saw the Huskies move ahead of the No. 3-ranked X-Men for good following back-to-back early baskets by Simon Marr and Demitri Harris. The Huskies, who led by as much as eight points in the final frame, held a five point lead at 65-60 with three minutes left in the game but the X-Men struggled to close the gap in the final minutes.
Uchegbu was named the Most Valuable Player of the tournament.
Halifax's Christian Upshaw, a fourth year guard, had a game-high 21 points and added eight rebounds for StFX and was named a tournament all-star. Jeremy Dunn, also selected to the all-star squad, scored 11 points and had 6 rebounds while Charlie Spurr scored 9 points and added 5 rebounds.
Also being named to the tournament all-star team in the eight-team invitational was Josh Gibson-Bascombe from Ottawa, Simon Farine from Dalhousie and Simon Marr from Saint Mary's.
Bronze medal game: Gee-Gees 72, Tigers 52.
The CIS No. 9-ranked Tigers had lost a hard-fought 69-66 game to the eventual champion Huskies in semi-final play the night before and were unable to pick up a victory over the Gee-Gee's despite leading 36-30 at the half.
Ottawa's Donnie Gibson poured in 20 points to and Gibson-Bascombe added 19 points and eight rebounds for the Gee-Gees while Warren Ward had a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.
Farine was the only Tiger to score in double-digits and paced Dalhousie with 22 points and eight rebounds. The Tigers shot just 19.2 per cent (5-of-26) from the floor in the second half which saw them outscored in the third quarter by a 72-52 margin.
Voyageurs 79, Axemen 69: In the fifth-place game, Isiah Pasquale scored 19 points for Laurentian and Manny Pasquale chipped in 11 points and five rebounds while Georges Serresse also hit for 11.
Alexandre Traikov scored 19 points for the Axemen and hauled down 15 rebounds. Jonathan Kamba and Casey Fox each added 15 points.
The Huskies resume AUS regular season play this weekend as they host the UPEI Panthers Saturday, January 10th (8:00pm) and Sunday, January 11th (3:00pm) at The Tower. The X-Men will travel to Memorial University of Newfoundland for a pair of games this weekend against the Sea-Hawks. The Axemen kick off their 2010 schedule Friday night in Halifax as they return to the Dalplex to face the Tigers at 8pm. It will be the first meeting of the two teams since March of 2009 when Dalhousie defeated Acadia 88-85 at the Halifax Metro Centre in AUS quarterfinal play.
Complete Rod Shoveller Memorial tournament results:
Friday,
January 1
Acadia 61 vs. Ottawa 86
StFX 88 vs. Laurier 57
SMU 80 vs. Concordia 62
DAL 87 vs. Laurentian 69
Saturday,
January 2
Acadia 72 vs. Laurier 54
Concordia 85 vs. Laurentian 94
Ottawa 82 vs. StFX 97
SMU 69 vs. DAL 66
Sunday,
January 3
Seventh Place: Laurier 60 vs. Concordia 62
Fifth Place: Acadia 69 vs. Laurentian 79
Bronze: Ottawa 72 vs. DAL 52
Championship: StFX 66 vs. SMU 71
Tournament MVP: Ikeobi Uchegbu, Saint Mary's
Tournament All-Stars
Josh Gibson-Bascombe, Ottawa
Simon Farine, Dalhousie
Jeremy Dunn, StFX
Christian Upshaw, StFX
Simon Marr, Saint Mary's
