Kwantlen Eagles claim victory in last game of tournament

Kwantlen's Mike Davis (11) and Omid Davani (21), battle to score for the Eagles. (Rachelle Ashe photo

Full-on body-checks, fouls galore and a neck-and-neck race on the scoreboard made for an intense final game for the Kwantlen Eagles, who bested the Vancouver University Island Mariners 92-86, at the Douglas College basketball tournament that ran from Oct.17-19.

Eagle’s head coach Bernie Love was more than pleased. “This is the first time we’ve actually played basketball all year,” he said. “We came up, we scored. We haven’t scored more than 73 points and we scored 92 today.”

Trying to pinpoint problem areas in previous games, Love watched the team’s game tapes and finally came to a conclusion. “Today we shot the basketball — rest of the weekend we would never shot it. We’d be wide open … we were turnin’ the ball over carelessly.”<

Love commends his players for putting their full effort into Sunday’s game. “All the guys played well,” said Love. “Today, Omid (Davani) was fantastic. He had 28 points; he had nine rebounds; he had four assists.”

Davani began to emerge from the blur of red jerseys when he took his third free-throw at the end of the second qurater, which helped bumped the Eagles (who had been lagging a few points behind since the end of the first period), past VIU by a score of 39-34.

Kwantlen Eagles' Nick Lafleur (9), propels the ball towards the basket, during the final tournament game on Sunday, Oct. 19. (Rachelle Ashe Photo)

The Mariners lagged by a steady 10 points until the final quarter when, at two and a half minutes left, with a score of 88-76, the Eagles started to rack up fouls and the Mariners cashed in effortless free-throws.

With 47 seconds left on the clock, the Mariners had closed the gap considerably and VIU’s Jacob Thom smoothly stole ball from Davani and sank it, closing the score to 89-86 Eagles.

With frequent glances at the score clock, and needless passes, the Eagles were visibly biding their time, as the clock fell under half a minute.

Davani was awarded three free-throw shots, virtually in a row, bringing their score up by three points. The Mariners then took control, and as both teams flew down the court, Kwantlen’s Brighton Gbarazia managed to wrench the ball free from his opponent. With four seconds left, his coach and team members yelled for him to hold onto it as the game slowed to a stop and the timer buzzed.