Kodiak men’s basketball closes it out again
By Woodard, Dale on January 20, 2020.
Dale Woodard
Lethbridge Herald
It was the equivalent of the bottom of the ninth for the Lethbridge College Kodiaks men’s basketball team.
Luckily for them, they have ample support in the proverbial bullpen.
The Kodiaks – who earlier last week were given the top seed in the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association rankings – posted a close 89-86 win over the Ambrose Lions in Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference play at the Val Matteotti Gymnasium.
The win came 24 hours after another close win, a 91-83 decision in Calgary that improves the Kodiaks to 13-0 on the season, eight points up on the second place SAIT Trojans (9-3).
On Saturday, the Lions took a brief one-point lead in the fourth quarter before the Kodiaks retook the lead.
The visitors kept up the pace and threatened to knock the Kodiaks into the loss column for the first time this year, but a little support and shut down performances kept Lethbridge’s record unblemished.
“Our guys have been good at closing games all year,” said Kodiaks head coach Ryan Heggie. “We’ve had different guys step up in situations. (Saturday) we got big baskets from Jaxon Davison and Steele Stef, who aren’t our leading scorers and they came up with big plays when it counted. Chris Thomson had 14 points and 14 rebounds and had a really solid night. We had five players in double figures scoring. So we really spread the ball around.”
Davison was one of those double-digit performers with 12 points.
Brock Dewsbery narrowly missed the triple-double with 24 points and nine rebounds and eight assists, Chase Bohne drained 19 points and six assists and Orin Porter Jr. had 11 points, five assists and two steals.
Down the stretch, Stef came in and added six points.
“The guys were really excited about this weekend,” said Heggie. “It was a good match up for us, similar teams and similar strategies. It really felt like a playoff atmosphere Friday at Ambrose and in Saturday in Lethbridge.
“We had a really good crowd and I thought the guys really played hard.
“Our defence, at time even though it looked like we were struggling a bit, we still held that team to 83 and 86 points over the weekend. We held them 10 shots under their average. Our defence made them move the ball quite a bit and use up the shot clock for the majority of the game. So I was pretty happy with that.”
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