UPEI clinches playoff bye by edging StFX 74-73

(Charlottetown, PE) – The UPEI Panthers guaranteed themselves a top two seed in the upcoming AUS championship as they were able to overcome an eight-point halftime deficit Saturday night in front of 600 fans at the Chi-Wan Young Sports Centre, edging the StFX X-Men 74-73.

In the final home game of the season, the Panthers were looking to end things early, jumping out to an 11-0 lead in the opening minutes. However, legendary coach Steve Konchalski was not about to let his team get run out of the gym, calling an early timeout. From that point, his X-Men would go on a run of their own, outscoring the Panthers 21-5 to end the first quarter leading 21-16.

The X-Men maintained the momentum, pounding the ball inside to forward Cameron Walker (Dallas, Texas) who ended the first half with 10 points on four of seven shooting. Julius Antoine (Woodbridge, ON), led all first half scorers with 12 points as StFX took a 41-33 lead into halftime. Brad States (Bathurst, NB), was the high man for the Panthers with 10 points, three blocks and a steal.

The third quarter was a battle of the bigs as UPEI's Brad States and StFX's Walker each continued to have the hot hand. The Panthers struggled to keep Walker out of the paint and he made them pay, scoring eight points from inside the key. States was able to counter scoring 10 points of his own including a massive put back dunk that seemed to wake up his teammates as they fought their way back to tie the game at 55 after 30 minutes of action.

It took nearly the entire final 10 minutes for the game to be decided as the lead changed hands five times in the quarter. States continued his strong performance and would prove to be the clinching factor when he went 2-2 from the charity stripe in the final seconds of the game giving the Panthers a one-point lead.

StFX called a timeout in order to advance the ball to the frontcourt with under 10 seconds to play and had a wide-open three rim out with two seconds left. The rebound deflected off a UPEI player before going out of bounds so the X-Men retained possession with 2.0 seconds left in the game trailing 74-73.

The game ended with UPEI's Milorad Sedlarevic (Vesenice, Slovenia) deflecting the inbounds pass causing time to expire before StFX could get a final shot off as the Panthers escaped with the one-point victory.

Cameron Walker and Julius Antoine were the top performers for the X-Men, scoring 21 and 22 points respectively.

UPEI's Ellis Ffrench (Wolfville, NS), turned in 13 points, seven rebounds, five assists and four steals in the victory. Teammate and fellow senior, Geoff Doane (St. Margaret's Bay, NS), struggled to score but hauled in 20 rebounds in the win.

The stat line of the night went to AUS Subway Player of the Game, Brad States, who poured in 30 points on 12-18 shooting to go along with nine rebounds, four blocks and three steals as well as the game winning free throws.

UPEI (14-4) heads to Wolfville to take on the Acadia Axemen (4-14) on Friday, February 20th.

StFX (4-15) ends its season on the road in Halifax next Friday, February 20th when they will face Saint Mary's (11-7).

Source: Jonathan Lane for UPEI Sports Information