EDMONTON, Alberta – Trinity Western second-year guard Marcus Shankar (Campbell River, B.C.) hit a three-point basket with 11 seconds remaining, and fourth-year guard Josh Belvin (Long Beach, Calf.) hit for a personal best 35 points to lift the Spartans to a 73-72 victory over the Alberta Golden Bears Saturday night at the David Atkinson Gymnasium in Edmonton, Alta. The win gives the Spartans a four-game winning streak and improves them to 4-1 as they wrap up preseason play, while the loss drops the Bears to 4-3 in preseason play.

Third-year centre Connor Platz (Langley, B.C.) with a double-double of 13 points and 13 rebounds, Third-year guard David Mutabazi (Delta, B.C.) with eight points and 10 rebounds, and Sankar with 10 rebounds, and three steals also had strong games for the Spartans. Adam Paige with 27 points, and Isaac Simon and Lars Ishimwe with 17 points each led the Golden Bears.

AS IT HAPPENED
The Spartans started slowly and quickly found themselves behind 13-4. But TWU used a 19-4 run to take and six-point, 23-17 lead and get themselves back in the game. From that point, it was a back-and-forth game. Alberta led at each of the breaks, leading 25-24 at the end of the first quarter and 36-34 at the half. The Bears expanded to three points, 48-45, after 30 minutes.

Down the stretch, Belvin hit a three-point basket to give TWU a 70-69 lead with 45 seconds remaining. Alberta's Paige countered with a three-pointer to put the Bears up 72-70 with 25 seconds remaining. With 11.7 seconds remaining Shankar hit from the corner to give the Spartans the one-point lead. After a timeout, Alberta went to Paige for the final look, but his turnaround shot was long as TWU held on for the one-point win.

QUOTABLE
TWU Head Coach Trevor Pridie
"A great weekend for us. Alberta is a really good veteran team and we were able to stay tight with them throughout the game and then Juice [Belvin] took over down the stretch. Connor had a great weekend on both ends and is such a presence defensively. Awesome for Marcus to hit that big 3 to give us the lead and then we did a great job defensively in getting a stop to secure the win. Really proud of the guys right now. We are having a lot of fun right now. The only thing that too bad is that's it's only the preseason."

NOTABLE

• TWU shot 42.9 percent (27-63) from the field, 33.3 percent (8-24) from the three-point line, and 68.8 percent (11-16) from the foul line, while Alberta shot 38.2 percent (29-76), 34.3 percent (12-35), and 15.4 percent (2-13) respectively.
• The Bears had a 46-41 edge in rebounding.
• TWU is 7-24 lifetime against Alberta. The Spartans and the Bears split last year's two games in Langley, B.C. with TWU winning 91-77 and losing 90-81.

UP NEXT
The Spartans will now have a week off before opening up Canada West conference play on November 3-4 in Kamloops, B.C. against the Thompson Rivers WolfPack. Game time is at 7:30 p.m. (PT) on both nights and can be seen live on Canadawest.tv.

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 14 U SPORTS team championships and 34 Canada West team championships.
 
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