BOX SCORE
VICTORIA – The University of Calgary Dinos got big games from their big players to take a 73-68 win over the Victoria Vikes Friday night in Game 1 of their best-of-three Canada West quarterfinal Friday night at McKinnon Gym.
The victory is Calgary's seventh straight game and takes a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three Canada West quarterfinal series. Game 2 goes Saturday Feb. 25 at 8 p.m. MT, and Game 3, if necessary, will be played Sunday, Feb. 26 at 3 p.m. MT All games will be broadcast live on CanadaWest.tv.
Boris Bakovic finished with a double-double on 27 points and 11 rebounds along with five assists in a terrific performance. Teammate
Tyler Fidler 19 points, six rebounds and six assists along with two blocks and two steals.
“Tyler and Boris both played really well, they did what we needed to do, and we got big games from our big guns,” said Calgary head coach
Dan Vanhooren. “We held our own from a rebounding standpoint. And one of the guys who deserves a lot of credit that won't show up on the stats sheet is
Josh Owen-Thomas – he was guarding (Ryan) MacKinnon all night, and everything Mackinnon got was tough and he had to work hard for it.”
Three seniors led the Vikes. MacKinnon netted a team-high 18 points, while Zac Andrus added 15. Michael Berg also had 12 points along with a team-high eight rebounds. Victoria scored just 10 second-chance points despite pulling down 10 offensive rebounds. Terrell Evans also netted 12 points in the loss.
Despite trailing by as many as eight points in the second quarter, the Vikes led 35-34 at the half thanks to a great opening quarter from Berg and an equally strong second quarter from Andrus. But the Vikes hit just a trio of their nine three-point attempts in the opening half or the lead could have been bigger.
In the third quarter, the Vikes gained momentum quickly after a sensational 30-foot trey from MacKinnon following a massive Fidler block on Berg. The crowd-pleaser and momentum-changer gave the Vikes a 41-37 lead. But once again, a few possessions with turnovers and poor shot selection allowed the Dinos to claw back.
The Vikes led 54-53 after three quarters.
Andrus gave the Vikes two five-point leads twice in the first four minutes of the fourth quarter, then an Evans backdoor cut and lay-up with 5:50 remaining gave the Vikes their largest lead of the game at six points and forced a Calgary timeout.
Victoria maintained a six-point cushion with just over three minutes remaining at 66-60. But a beautiful arching three-pointer from Calgary guard
Keenan Milburn started an 8-0 Dinos run that would eventually win them the game.
MacKinnon was given the ball on the next two sequences as he tried to help the Vikes back into the game but strong defensive play from Australian-raised rookie Owen-Thomas stymied the Vikes' go-to guy.
Fidler scored what proved to be the winning points, converting a lay-up to go up 70-68. From there, Calgary scored their final three points from the charity stripe after forcing Vikes fouls following Dinos defensive stops.
In other games, Alberta defeated UBC 79-69 in Edmonton to take a 1-0 series lead, while Saskatchewan dumped Trinity Western 98-83 in Saskatoon. Fraser Valley tied its best-of-three series with Lethbridge at 1-1 with a 74-66 win on Friday night forcing a third and deciding game in the series Saturday night.
NOTES: Berg scored the game's first points… Eight of the Vikes first 10 points were scored by Berg, 12 of first 12 by forwards… The first foul of game took over eight minutes to earn, coming with 1:45 left in the opening quarter… Uncharacteristically, early into the second quarter, UVic had missed all six three-point attempts. MacKinnon eventually hit the Vikes' first three of the night with 5:25 remaining. they hit just four of their 16 attempts from downtown.
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