Cascades hoopsters wrap up busy weekend at home

(by Dan Kinvig)  Here is a wrap of this weekend’s Cascades basketball action from the Envision Athletic Centre:

Men’s Basketball

In one of the more surreal endings to a game in recent Canada West men’s basketball history, the Mount Royal Cougars upended the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades 86-71 in overtime on Saturday evening.
The host Cascades, after leading by double digits in the first half, found themselves down by seven points with four minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. But the hosts staged a furious rally, capped by an incredible buzzer-beater by Manny Dulay to force OT.
With UFV trailing 66-63, Marcus Morgan inbounded the ball to Dulay with 2.4 seconds left in regulation. The fourth-year guard out of Surrey, B.C. took two dribbles to his right and heaved a contested shot from well beyond the arc. The ball swished through, thrilling the partisan crowd at the Envision Athletic Centre.
But UFV had only eight players available on this night due to injury and illness, and three of them had already fouled out. In the first minute and a half of OT, the Cascades’ Nate Brown and Brandon Burke each picked up their fifth and disqualifying fouls, leaving UFV with just three players on the court – Dulay, Morgan and Vijay Dhillon. The Cougars out-scored the shorthanded Cascades 20-5 in the extra session.
Mount Royal improved to 3-7 on the season, which leaves them tied for fifth in the Explorer Division. Second-place UFV is 6-4.

The Cascades will welcome the UNBC Timberwolves to the Envision Athletic Centre next weekend. They’ll tip off on Friday evening at 8 p.m. and again on Saturday at 7 p.m.

Women’s Basketball

The University of the Fraser Valley women’s basketball team (6-4) leaned on some strong rebounding and a little resiliency en route to a 64-52 win over the Mount Royal University Cougars (1-9) at the Envision Athletic Centre on Saturday night.
The Cougars hung with the Cascades for much of the evening, and were level at 37-37 late in the third quarter. But UFV, coming off a 73-58 win vs. Mount Royal on Friday, responded with a 16-4 run bridging the third and fourth quarters to seize control.
The grit the Cascades brought to the gym on Saturday yielded a 42-28 edge over the taller Cougars in the rebounding department.
“I was really happy with our effort tonight,” UFV head coach Al Tuchscherer said afterward. “I don’t think it was just rebounding, either – it was a grittier performance, and I that showed up in a lot of the stats. . . . We were on the ground a lot tonight, getting after the 50-50 stuff. If we’re doing those things, we become that tough, gritty team we want to be.”

The Cascades welcome the UNBC Timberwolves (1-9) to the Envision Athletic Centre for a pair of games next weekend. The action gets underway on Friday at 6 p.m. while Saturday’s game is set to tip off at 5 p.m.