The Ravens men’s basketball team began their quest for a 10th Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) championship Feb. 22 with a win over the Laurentian University Voyageurs in their first playoff game.
The Ravens ended the regular season Feb. 15 with a win against the Voyageurs.
The last time the team lost was in an exhibition game against the University of Cincinnati Bearcats of the National Collegiate Athletic Association in October 2013. Since then the Ravens have gone undefeated with a perfect 22-0 regular season record.
The Ravens and Voyageurs faced off twice during the regular season, the Ravens winning both contests by more than 20 points. The Voyageurs finished the regular season fourth in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) East division.
The Ravens started out the game with a promising 4-0 lead within the opening minutes thanks to baskets from fourth-year forward Kevin Churchill.
Recent games had the Ravens playing catch up in the first quarter, a trend that the team appeared to have ended.
“Coach always says we’ve got to be the hunter, be the aggressor in the situation, don’t let them throw the first punch,” fifth-year forward Tyson Hinz said.
The Ravens led for the first half of the game with a score of 60-35 by halftime.
It is good news for the Ravens that Churchill is back on the court, after he sustained a sprained ankle Jan. 25 against the York University Lions. Churchill credited the team’s physiotherapist with getting him back to health.
“It’s feeling great,” he said.
After halftime, Hinz sank a basket within a minute to extend the Ravens lead, which they did not give up for the rest of the game.
“We know if we let them get going it’s going to be a tough matchup,” Hinz said.
Throughout the second half, the Voyageurs tried to move close to the Ravens, scoring the same number of points as the Ravens in the third and only nine less in the fourth.
A couple of slam dunks by fourth-year guard Clinton Springer-Williams at the beginning of the fourth quarter put the Ravens ahead 94-62.
The Voyageurs rallied to challenge the surging Ravens but the closest they would get was within 25 points.
In the final three minutes of the game, the Ravens pulled ahead for a final score of 111-77.
“If we lose a game and we worked as hard as we could, we played as hard as we could the whole time, but the other team just played better so be it. We just don’t want to go down not having worked as hard as we could,” Churchill said.
With the win, the Ravens will move on to the OUA Wilson Cup Final Four Feb. 28-March 1, which will take place at Ryerson University. The Ravens are set to play the University of Windsor Lancers Feb. 28 in one of the semifinals. The winner will move on the play in the OUA championship game March 1.
