LANGLEY, B.C. – Trinity Western fell 99-95 to Fraser Valley in a thrilling overtime bout at the Langley Events Centre on Thursday.
The Spartans (0-7) forced the game into overtime late, cutting UFV's (4-3) substantial lead in the fourth quarter.
Zubair Seyed headlined UFV's night, scoring 27 points while adding 10 rebounds. Seyed iced the game for the Cascades late, hitting a 3-pointer to plunge the final nail into the coffin.
Ja'Qualyn Gilbreath (Amarillo, Texas) was outstanding once again, scoring 38 points while grabbing 12 rebounds.
Mason Bourcier (Kelowna, B.C.) was also a major standout for the Spartans, hitting the game-tying basket, scoring 23 points while totalling 11 rebounds and seven assists as well.
AS IT HAPPENED
After both teams traded 2-point buckets to start the game, the Spartans exploded with a 12-point orchestrated by
Mason Bourcier's speedy offence run to push the game to 14-2 in favour of the home side. Although the Cascades were caught on their heels to start the game, UFV rode Zubair Seyed's wave, scoring 11 points on four of five shooting to bring the cross-town rival back into the game. The quarter ended at a 19-15 line in favour of the Spartans.
The second quarter started with the Spartans regaining control, riding
Ja'Qualyn Gilbreath's offensive stardom. TWU's lead grew to 11 points by the midway point of the quarter. Yet again, the Cascades refused to bow to the home side, moving to a 10-point run of their own to whittle TWU's lead down to one point by the end of the first half.
The early stages of the third quarter belonged to the Cascades as the visitors did well to disrupt any sort of offensive flow generated by the Spartans. As a result, UFV claimed a 46-41 lead halfway through the quarter. UFV's defensive efforts were strong throughout the entire quarter as Kyle Claggett, Dario Lopez, and Zubair Seyed set a gritty tone for the match. Although the Spartans showed flashes of life, one of which being an and-one bucket by Gilbreath, the quarter continued to tilt in favour of the Cascades as they claimed a substantial 61-49 lead of their own.
The final quarter of play saw the Spartans come out with all they had to give.
Mason Bourcier darted around the court, giving way for
Sam Dyck (Almonte, Ont.) to hit a timely 3-pointer. On the other end, Claggett put on a beautiful spin move to draw a momentum-killing and-one. Although the game still remained in UFV's hands, the Spartans bumped up the pace of the game as
Vlad Mihaila (Surrey, B.C.) hit two timely 3-pointers to bring the Spartans to a seven-point deficit. As the offence seemed to sort itself out for the Spartans, the Cascades started to move the ball incredibly well to slow down the pace of the game while getting easy buckets. With the final two minutes bearing a seven-point lead for the Cascades, a timeout called by TWU head coach
Trevor Pridie lit a fire under the Spartans. With all five Spartans making massive contributions on the court,
Mason Bourcier hit a layup to tie the game with 18 seconds remaining. With an opportunity to win it,
Andrew Goertzen blocked a layup with three seconds remaining. After the block, the ball found its way into the hands of
Tre Fillmore. Fillmore rushed the ball up the court, finding
Ja'Qualyn Gilbreath a couple feet past the half-court line. Gilbreath rose up, shot the ball, and sunk it. Although the Langley Events Centre seemed convinced that the game was over, referees convened to disallow the basket, extending the wild finish that this game had brought to the Langley Events Centre.
Although the fourth quarter was filled with wild moments, overtime was far more composed. As both teams traded leads, it was Zubair Seyed, who scored a team-high of 27 points for the Cascades, who iced the game with a 3-pointer to put the Cascades up by three with 23.7 seconds remaining. Gilbreath came back with an effort to tie it up, but the ball clanged off the back-rim as the Cascades corralled the rebound, forcing the Spartans to foul. The game rolled to a close as Seyed and Kyle Claggett hit all of their free throws.
NOTABLE
- Ja'Qualyn Gilbreath tied his career-high of 38 points on Thursday. This was Gilbreath's second consecutive performance with 30+ points scored.
- The Spartans struggled mightily from the line, shooting 10 of 20 from the charity stripe.
QUOTABLE
TWU Head Coach Trevor Pridie
"When we were in attack mode, we were good. We lost our pace for a bit, so our offence got stagnant for a while. Zubair had an outstanding game. He came off the bench when we were pulling away and changed the game. The free-throw line killed us. We went 50 percent from the line. We didn't have many turnovers, but we made costly ones on two-on-ones and other situations where we shouldn't be turning the ball over.
"The guys battled. They fought back after a bad third quarter, but we need to find a way to play our game for 40 minutes so we can give ourselves a chance to win every game. Sam [Dyck] also played well in his limited minutes. We have a lot of adversity to face this weekend with a lot of hurt guys, and others coming off being sick, so we have to bear down for these next two."
UP NEXT
The Spartans are slated to play Thompson Rivers (5-4) at the Langley Events Centre on Friday (8 p.m.) and Saturday (5 p.m.).
About Spartan Athletics
As official members of U SPORTS, the Spartans currently compete in 13 sports in the Canada West conference, including women's and men's soccer, volleyball, basketball, hockey, cross country and track & field, as well as women's rugby sevens. TWU also competes as an independent team in men's rugby. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 12 U SPORTS team championships and 29 Canada West team championships.
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