DAVID LARKINS, Wesmen Athletics
WINNIPEG — The Winnipeg Wesmen once again put up a boatload of points, but this time they were able to make them count.
The Wesmen men's basketball team, after blowing a 10-point fourth-quarter lead Friday night, locked down when it needed to Saturday, outscoring the Saskatchewan Huskies 28-18 in the fourth to score a 90-81 Canada West conference victory at the Duckworth Centre.
Sean Tarver led five Wesmen players in double figures with 28 points and added 12 rebounds for his third double-double of the season and second in as many games. Narcisse Ambanza had a career-high 14 assists to go along with 17 points to record his third double-double of the season.
It was the fifth time this season the Wesmen have scored at least 90 points, with four of those games being wins.
Joseph Medrano scored 11, Don Dayrit, who went off for a career-high 41 on Friday, had 10 points and Spas Nikolov, who fouled out in the first meeting between the teams, gave the Wesmen (5-3) a much-needed interior presence down the stetch, finishing with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
"(Nikolov) made some great plays protecting the rim in particular, he came up with a couple of tough rebounds and he finished some timely ones around the bucket as well," Wesmen head coach Mike Raimbault said. "So absolutely a great rebound game from him."
The Huskies (4-4), who led 46-45 at the half, took a one-point lead into the third quarter and stretched it to five at 67-62 with 9:12 to go. The Wesmen then went on an 8-2 run to take the lead back with 6:32 left on a Nikolov layup. After JT Robinson hit a shot to bring the Huskies to a point down at 74-73, the Wesmen held the Huskies to without a field goal for the next 2:47 before a Chan De Ciman three stopped an 8-0 Wesmen run.
Robinson led the Huskies with a game-high 30 points and Lawrence Moore, who also dropped 41 on Friday, settled for 16 points, but added five rebounds and five steals. Alexander Dewar had 10 points off the bench.
"For us, it was too many defensive breakdowns," Saskatchewan head coach Barry Rawlyk said. "It was just fundamental things that we weren't doing that we need to do. We gave up way too many easy scores."