Cavaliers stay sharp under the basket for first-round upset of Edmonton’s Ooks

The Champlain College Cavaliers were eventually going to take it out on someone for losing their provincial championship earlier this month. On Thursday evening, that someone happened to be Edmonton’s Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) Ooks.

The St-Lambert, Que.-based Cavaliers, seeded No. 6 at this 2010 Canadian Colleges Athletic Association men’s basketball national championship tournament, upset the No. 3-ranked Ooks 69-63 in first-round action at Calgary’s SAIT Polytechnic.

And for the Cavaliers, who’d gained entry at these roundball nationals with one of two wild-card berths, the victory made amends for the club’s 83-75 loss to the CEGEP de Ste-Foy, Que., Dynamiques on March 6 for the Federation Quebecoise du Sport Etudiant (FQSE) crown.

“We knew, when we beat (Montreal’s) Dawson (College) in the (FQSE) semis, that there was a really strong chance we were going to get a (CCAA) wild-card berth, considering our record over last year and this year,” offered 13th-year Champlain head coach John Dangelas.

“So we felt like, in that provincial championship game, we didn’t really play with the same sense of urgency that we needed – the kind we played with today.”

The Cavaliers, who lost the 2009 CCAA gold-medal game, advance to a national semifinal on Friday, March 19 at 8 p.m. MT. The Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference champion Ooks will begin qualification for Saturday’s bronze-medal game on Friday at 3 p.m. MT.

St-Lambert’s Adam Chmielewski (3rd-year guard, Montreal) led all players with 25 points; Simon Bibeau (2nd-year guard, St-Bruno, Que.) added 15 for the Cavaliers. For NAIT, Shane Reece (3rd-year forward, Mississauga, Ont.) chalked up 20 points, while Shane Cox (4th-year wing, Brampton, Ont.) chipped in 15. St-Lambert’s Ibrahim Appiah (third-year forward, Laval, Que.) and Bjorn Michaelsen (3rd-year forward, Otterburn Park, Que.) were the top rebounders, with 11 and 10 respectively.

Thursday night, the Cavaliers maintained a consistent seven-point cushion throughout almost the entire game – except for the final three minutes, when NAIT began chipping away. The Albertans made it 64-63 with 59.4 seconds remaining, but in the end were thwarted by cold shooting. The Ooks missed four makeable baskets in the final 90 seconds, and six in total, and were unable to take the lead.

At the other end, the Cavaliers were five-of-six from the free-throw line to gain some breathing room.

“We lost the rebounding game. We gave up 14 offensive rebounds -- and to work that hard on defence, only to give up an offensive rebound, is tiring,” said NAIT head coach Don Phillips. “I also thought . . . that they shot a lot of free throws (28 to NAIT’s 13). I’d prefer a little more consistency on some of those calls.

“At the same time, that doesn’t do anything about the two missed layups that would have put us up one,” added Phillips. “You’ve got to learn from it. At the end of the day, we’re a young team, and it’s too bad to learn a harsh lesson at this point in the season. But winning a national championship is tough, and you’ve got to be able to play defence and grab rebounds.”

The Cavaliers shot 44.2 per cent from the field, compared to the Ooks’ 37.5.

“We played to our strengths. We tried to play inside-out,” said Chmielewski. “We know we can shoot, but it’s important for us to go inside. That’s why Appiah came up big, and that helped our shooting game.”

For live game webcasts, real-time stats, photo galleries, and recaps, visit the official CCAA national tournament website at http://www.sait2010.ca/