Chris Spurrell does not play for Memorial University, but on Saturday, the shooting guard from Quispamsis, N.B., made one of the key shots for the Sea-Hawks this 2018-19 Atlantic University Sport men’s basketball season.
At Fredericton, N.B., Spurrell hit a baseline jumper with less than a second left in the game to give the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds a 72-70 win over the Acadia Axemen, a result that clinched a playoff berth for the Sea-Hawks.
Had Acadia won, it would have supplanted Memorial as the sixth-place team in the conference and owner of the final berth for the AUS championship tournament in Halifax next weekend.
As it was, the Reds’ victory left Memorial, Acadia and the UPEI Panthers all with 6-14 records and even in points, but when the tiebreaking formula was applied, the Sea-Hawks prevailed over both the Axemen and Panthers.
In each case, they had split their head-to-head matchups in the regular season, but the Sea-Hawks had the better differentials in points for and against in those games.
Memorial could have avoided a lot of the drama by winning one of its two final regular-season contests over the weekend at the Field House in St. John’s. However, the Sea-Hawks lost both, falling 87-75 and 79-61 to the visiting Dalhousie Tigers Friday and Saturday.
So Memorial, which has lost its last five games, was left to wait on the results from later Saturday in Fredericton and Antigonish, N.S.
In the latter, the Panthers were eliminated by a 95-80 loss to the St. Francis Xavier X-Men. However, in Fredericton, the Axemen led most of the way and looked like they might be on the way to a playoff-clinching win. That was before a UNB fourth-quality rally and Spurrell’s winning shot.
The weekend games at the Field House served as a preview of a first-round matchup at the championship tourney in Halifax.
That competition begins on Friday, when Memorial will face third-seed Dalhousie in a quarter-final game. A win there would put the Sea-Hawks up against the first-place Saint Mary’s Huskies, who have a bye through the first playoff round.
The other quarter-final has St. FX taking on the Cape Breton Capers, with UNB joining Saint Mary’s in getting the bye through to the semifinals, another product of the UNB’s Saturday win, its second big triumph in as many days.
On Friday, the Varsity Reds had downed the visiting Huskies 88-76, preventing Saint Mary’s (19-1) from completing an undefeated season.
Dalhousie 79, Memorial 61 (Saturday)
Nathan Barker of Massey Drive had a game-high 23 points for the Sea-Hawks, while teammate Emmanuel Ring of St. John’s (17 points, nine rebounds) was one board away from a double-double. But the Tigers took an early lead and never gave it up.
Barker finished the regular-season with a 21.4 points-per-game average, behind only Cape Breton’s Osman Oman (21.9) in the conference scoring race. Ring was third at 15.8.
The third-year forward was first in shots attempted (340) and made (149), and also led the league in total minutes played (745, or an average of more than 37 minutes per game) and free-throw percentage (92.7)
Sea-Hawks guard Jason Thompson of St. John’s topped the conference in total assists (89) and was second to Barker in minutes played. Ring was third in scoring average (15.8) and second in blocks (28).
Dalhousie 87, Memorial 75 (Friday)
The Sea-Hawks’ starters all scored in double figures, but the Tigers got much more from their bench en route to the win.
Thompson (17 points) was Memorial’s top scorer, followed by Boris Ristanovic (16), Barker (14) and Ring and Daniel Foo, each with 10.
Jeff Damalie had eight points in 17 minutes off the Memorial bench, but that was the only offensive contribution outside of the starting five. The Sea-Hawks’ four other non-starters saw just a combined 14 minutes of floor time.
Dalhousie’s bench players produced 29 points and 15 rebounds in 70 total minutes of action.
