The Briercrest men’s basketball team played against the St. Mary’s Lightning in an exciting and hard-fought game that could have gone either way, but ended in the visitors winning with a final score of 97-92. There were many highs in the game and Briercrest never gave up.

The men’s team started off the first quarter in a close battle for the upper hand of the game. Ryan Penner maintained a strong quarter with an early three-pointer and block later on. Brandon Friesen had a particularly strong defensive quarter with several rebounds. The score at the end of the first was 22-20 for the visiting team.

The second quarter was just as close as the first and after a time-out Briercrest’s Julian Apakoh hit a deep three right over his defender’s head. Josh Tippe’s defender was extremely quick, but did a great job in guarding him closely. After a brief break because of an incident involving the basketball getting stuck above the backboard, the game continued with two minutes remaining and both teams never backing down. The first half ended with Briercrest in the lead with a score of 43-34.

Briercrest’s offensive game hit a high level of excitement when Apakoh put an aggressive dunk into the net even with the defense playing close. The Lightning pulled up and were two points behind Briercrets when the home team called for a time-out. Taren Garchinkski played well in bringing the ball up and creating movement for the team. Josh Klassen put in the two final points before the buzzer went and the third quarter ended with a score in favour of the guest 57-55.

St. Mary’s took a small lead over Briercrest and after a brief time-out they responded positively and Penner got a quick lay-up. They played an aggressive and strong defense that didn’t allow for the Lightning to take much to the net. Friesen received a subtle assist from Apakoh to get the basket and draw in a foul. After an eventful and long fourth quarter the game ended with Briercrest unable to beat St. Mary’s.

The Player of the Game for the St. Mary’s Lightnight was Quinn Taylor and for Briercrest Brandon Friesen who had 29 points, and a game high 16 rebounds and 2 assists. Ryan Penner held a total of a game high 33 points to go with 10 rebounds and Julian Apokah had 19 points and 5 assists. Great game was played by Briercrest even if they didn’t win.

The next game for the men’s team is against St. Mary’s tomorrow at 3:00 pm following the women’s game tomorrow in the Briercrest gym. If you can’t make it out to the game, the game will be on the online broadcaster acac.tv. Support Briercrest in whichever way that you can!

For up to date information on the Briercrest basketball team, “like” the Briercrest Basketball facebook page.