HALIFAX — The magic never ends.
The Carleton Ravens will play for another national championship on Sunday after defeating the uOttawa Gee-Gees 81-75 in a tense, emotion-infused national semifinal Saturday evening.
They’ll have a shot at winning their fourth consecutive national title and 17th in the last 20 years as their reign of dominance over Canadian university basketball enters its third decade.
“If you look back, we’ve accomplished a lot [this season],” head coach Taffe Charles said. “People did not think we were gonna be here, to be honest with you. There [were] many games where it was a struggle … The reality is that we’re here. In that sense, yeah, we’ve accomplished a lot, but we’re here to win the national championship.”
The win comes in large part thanks to guard Connor Vreeken, who exploded for 27 points—including 16 in the second half—and took control of Carleton’s offence as the game wore on.
That included a moment at the end of the game, when Charles told Vreeken to pass the ball to guard Aiden Warnholtz. Vreeken waved Warnholtz off and took the shot himself.
“If he’s doing that, that tells you how confident he was,” Charles said. “That’s what you need.”
Carleton jumped to an early 11-2 lead, powered by Warnholtz’s four-for-four start to the game. The Gee-Gees clawed back and took a four-point lead at the start of the second quarter, but the Ravens quickly reclaimed the advantage and never looked back.
For a team that struggled with youth and inexperience for most of the season, it was Carleton’s confidence on the biggest stage so far this year that made the difference.
“We’ve been here and proved it before and we know what we need to do,” Charles said. “We’ve gone through adversity before. It just makes us a bit stronger.”
For the Gee-Gees, chipping away at the Ravens’ lead proved impossible.
“We just couldn’t seem to string together one good run against them,” uOttawa head coach James Derouin said. “There’s probably 10 plays that are gonna haunt us for the whole summer.”
Guard Dragan Stajic led the Gee-Gees with 16 points and six assists.
“It’ll hurt tonight, it’ll hurt tomorrow. It’ll hurt for the rest of the year,” Stajic said. “We all care so much. We all put so much time and effort into this.”
Carleton and uOttawa had already played each other three times prior to Saturday. The Ravens won the first two matchups before the Gee-Gees beat Carleton at the Ravens’ Nest in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) final, welcoming chants of “our house” on Carleton’s home court.
By that point, Carleton had already qualified for nationals. On Saturday, the Ravens won when it mattered.
“It’s when you lose that’s the problem, not if you lose,” Charles said. “There’s great times to lose and to be honest with you, the OUA final, if you’re going to nationals, is probably one of the best ways … It really gets your team motivated and ready to kind of make sure we can play.”
While Derouin said the season would be a success with the OUA championship and bronze medal, which uOttawa could win Sunday, he said the loss will sit with the Gee-Gees for months.
“This is well beyond my expectations,” Derouin said. “Obviously this experience is very, very valuable to [us] moving forward and we plan on being back with this group. I felt all season that next year could be the year and maybe this tough loss will propel us through that.”
Now, the Ravens are headed back to the national championship game Sunday at 5 p.m. ET—a game they haven’t lost since their first banner in 2003. They’ll face the host St. Francis Xavier X-Men, who beat the University of Victoria Vikes 77-64 in the semifinals.
The Ravens enter the game as villains. At the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax, Carleton celebrated its win Saturday to “The Imperial March” playing through the speakers.
“Our theme is to be the hated and people want us to be beaten,” Charles said.
If the Ravens have magic left, it might be tough to do so.
Featured image by L. Manuel Baechlin.
