BITTERSWEET VICTORIES

Bruins keep pace in OCAA West by downing St. Clair, Lambton

BRAMPTON, Ont. (January 31)

-- A week ago after seeing an eight game winning streak snapped following consecutive losses to Humber and Algoma, the Sheridan Bruins men's basketball team (20-6, 9-5 OCAA) were at their lowest point in the year since an 0-3 start to their OCAA West schedule.

Now after back-to-back wins over St. Clair (103-87 on Jan. 30) and Lambton (79-60 on Jan. 31), they can certainly feel better, but their performance down the stretch against Lambton - seeing a 25-point lead with just over nine minutes left turn into a 10-point lead with 4:12 remaining - will leave the club feeling bittersweet moving forward .

"I coached us out of the bigger lead that we had, but I thought we got some nice performances. Still, there's three or four guys on our team who aren't even close to operating at 90 per cent right now that are eating up a lot of minutes," head coach Jim Flack said. "We're going to get in trouble if we don't start getting performances from our starters that are far superior to what we're getting right now."

While seeing some of their large lead evaporate was certainly troubling for the Bruins' coaching staff, it couldn't have happened without a strong start to the second half. They held a 40-31 halftime edge and opened the second frame on a 27-11 run to build the advantage. And even though Lambton pulled close to single digits, the Bruins still managed to finish strong, closing the game on a 10-2 run.

vs. St. Clair

The night before it was another big run that helped the home side put the game away. After St. Clair drilled back-to-back three pointers to knot the game at 81 with 6:30 left, the Double Blue responded with a 19-3 run over the next 4:54 to cement the victory.

Assistant coach Dave Ferencina says a big key to the run was setting the tempo and spreading around the minutes.

"We played a lot of people and wore them down. They don't really have a deep bench and that helped us down the stretch," he said. "They finally broke - we were worried they wouldn't – and we started to get some turnovers and easy looks and we got up ten and they never recovered."

The club has a full week off before hosting Fanshawe on February 7 which will be played prior to the championship game of the 16th annual Sheridan Cup. Forward Matt Cosby - who had a big weekend with 28 points and nine rebounds vs. St. Clair to go with 20 points and 16 rebounds against Lambton - says that while the team was relieved to get a pair of important victories, they can't act as though their work is complete.

"We can't relax," he said. "A lot of times teams win big games and then they relax and I think that's happened to us a couple times this year where we came out flat the next game."

Blue notes: The game was a part of the second annual Think Pink event where the entire Sheridan community comes together to raise money for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. All told, Think Pink at Sheridan generated over $11,000.