LANGLEY, B.C. – The Trinity Western Spartans men's basketball team fell in its first game of the new year, falling to No. 8 ranked Saskatchewan 98-70 Friday at the Langley Events Centre.
With the loss the TWU's record falls to 2-7 on the season, while Saskatchewan improves to 7-2.
Ja'Qualyn Gilbreath (Amarillo, Tex.) scored a team leading 18 points for the Spartans, while
Adam Gehrig (Toowoomba, Aust.) added 13 points alongside a team high seven rebounds.
Alexander Dewar dropped 19 points for the Huskies, with Maxwell Amoafo and Kessler Bishop adding 10 and 12 rebounds, respectively.
Both teams started the first quarter slow and finished strong, as the Huskies came out to an early six point lead before a late dunk from Spartans centre
Andrew Goertzen (Langley) gave TWU a 22-21 lead heading into the second quarter.
The second frame saw both teams frequently trading leads, with TWU forward Gehrig hitting a pair of early 3-pointers. The Huskies then pulled ahead late courtesy of a JT Robinson 3-point shot with 10 seconds left, as Saskatchewan led 46-39 at halftime.
Gehrig continued his sharpshooting for the Spartans in the second half, drilling a pair of 3-pointers to pull the score even at 52-52 early, before the Huskies took the lead emphatically on a 24-6 run and leading 76-58 after the third quarter.
Saskatchewan then closed out the game by carrying its second half momentum into the fourth quarter, outscoring the Spartans 22-12 over the final 10 minutes of the game to win the game 98-70.
The Huskies shot 45% (31-69) compared to the Spartans 39% (26/67) from the field. Saskatchewan also held a 56-35 edge in rebounds.
QUOTABLE
Spartans Head Coach Trevor Pridie
"It's kind of funny coming off the break, we didn't really play anybody over the last month, so we did our best to get a lot of guys in this week during our practices. Overall we had a really good first half. Our rebounding margins were good, and knowing they are a big, physical team in order for us to win tonight we knew we needed an A+ game on our part.
"We had to do a good job of limiting turnovers, keeping rebounding margins similar and in the first half we did a really good job with that. Into the second half they started to impose their will on us, and the rebounding margins really start to tilt in their favour. It's all about playing a full 40 minutes and battling, they turned it up in the second half and we didn't and that was the difference tonight."
NOTABLE
- TWU was coming off winning its first two games of the season (Nov. 29-30), knocking off MacEwan on back-to-back nights at the Spartans on-campus David E. Enarson Gym.
- Saskatchewan split with Thompson Rivers in the Huskies final Canada West weekend of the fall semester.
- The Spartans Ja'Qualyn Gilbreath (Amarillo, Texas) leads Canada West in scoring with 24.1 points per game. He was named the Canada West 1st Star of the Week following TWU's wins over MacEwan, after averaging 35 points over the weekend series.
- TWU was 1-9 in its last 10 games against the Huskies coming into Friday's tilt. The Spartans last win against Saskatchewan was Nov. 22, 2013 (75-73).
NEXT UP
The Spartans and Huskies have a rematch Saturday (7 p.m. PT) at the Langley Events Centre.
About Spartan Athletics
As official members of U SPORTS, the Spartans currently compete in 11 sports in the Canada West conference, including women's and men's soccer, volleyball, basketball, cross country and track & field, as well as women's rugby sevens. TWU also competes in the British Columbia Intercollegiate Hockey League (BCIHL) in men's hockey and as an independent team in men's rugby. The men's and women's hockey programs will begin playing in Canada West and U SPORTS in 2020-21. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 12 U SPORTS team championships and 27 Canada West team championships and two BCIHL championships.
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