Over the Edge, February 24 - March 10 2010 Andrew Bailey Page 5 I-Wolves Sink Mariners Battleship Editor in Chief To avoid confusion: Please be advised that The Malaspina Pirates are now referred to as the Vancouver Island University Mariners. Obviously Pirates are better than Mariners and the city of Nanaimo in no way represents Vancouver Island, but Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor so really nothing makes sense and it’s important to not be perplexed by this. Now with- out further delay, lets begin. After defeating the Mariners 67-60 in a close Friday matchup the night before, UNBC dominated Saturday's game blowing up the scoreboard to earn an 85-67 victory. The small crowd in attendance made up for their lack of size with incred- ible enthusiasm and thunderous ovation rocking the Charles Jago Northern Sports Centre with no regard for the fact that it had never been loved like that before. (1 know you don’t know who Andy Kim is but I’m banking on the fact that you’ve seen the relevant Jeep commercial and therefore loved that refer- ence.) The Mariners, who ranked #1 earlier on in the season, have been tobogganing down the rankings and after being swept by UNBC over the weekend finished the season in third place, the T-Wolves finished in their usual and predictable first place position one game in front of second place UBC-Okana- gan. | never thought I'd say this, but considering the Mariners relentless offense, lead by BCCAA rookie sensation Kayla Gromme, who provides a Dirk Nowitzkiesque, good at every- thing, presence on the court; Jaclyn Nazareno’s T-Wolves would not have been able to win this game. Christine Kennedy has, therefore, not just filled a void left by Nazareno’s gradua- tion, but her leadership has eclipsed that of the former T-Wolf great. Kennedy’s vocal quarterbacking has improved im- mensely since the beginning of the year and her intensely com- petitive attitude shouldered the T-Wolves throughout this alarming blowout against the southern Mariner powerhouse. Kennedy clicked her speed into 6th gear without losing any ac- T-Wolves Loot Andrew Bailey Editor in Chief On Thursday February 18th the UNBC men’s T-Wolves were one game behind the Vancouver Island University Mariners for first place in the BCCAA with two regular season games left to play. As fan-luck would have it, those 2 games were against said Mariners. Therefore, when UNBC destroyed VIU 80-69 on Friday, Saturday's matchup became the ultimate, Sago in the Jago, winner-take-all battle for the BCCAA regular season title. It was standing room only at the packed Charles Jago Northern Sports Centre. But even those who arrived early enough to score a seat never found a use for it since the ac- tion packed thriller, which the T-Wolves won 79-75 to clinch first place in the standings, had fans on their feet for the dura- tion of the fire-fight. I’ve never seen a game as exciting as this one so let’s get to it. Today’s game-plan is to start off some- where in the middle, go off on an irreverent tangent, and then kind of bounce around and hopefully cover everything with a succinctly randomized organization; there is no contingency. The VIU Mariners are the kind of team that would have de- stroyed the once hapless men’s T-Wolves during the bumbling pre-Raimbault years. But since the arrival of head coach Mike Raimbault, and his implementation of a new system of UNBC men’s basketball, there has not been a team in the BCCAA that UNBC can’t compete against. Coach Raimbault has an uncanny knowledge of each of his player’s individual talents which gives him the T-Wolf IQ to be able to know exactly who to put into any situation. For example, with 7 minutes left in the 4th Q and his T-Wolves down by 8 points Raimbault sent Fran- cis Rowe and Sam Raphael, two of the lightning hottest shoot- ers he had on the court, to the bench and replaced them with offensive fouling liability Dennis Stark and low minuter Matt Mills. Had | placed money on this game | would have torn my dreadlocks out of my head at this decision as | immediately as- sumed Raimbault had overdosed on crazy-pills. Of course then boom went the dynamite, Mills hit a huge 3-bomb immediately upon stepping onto the court in a situation so clutch that Sully Sullenberger would have fist pumped in amazement. Dennis Stark clogged up the offensive paint so effectively that the tenacious Mariner defense was paralyzed. Stark’s jamming of downtown main-street opened up uncontested 3-ball attempts from the T-Wolf’s perimeter shooters and delighted one partic- ular fan who held up a hilarious sign, which read “I Want Den- nis Stark Drug Tested.” Having Stark on the court also put an end to the cutesy alley-oop passes that Mariner point guard Mike Wohlers was dishing off to teammate Fraser Thompson. The hometown fans had definitely had enough of seeing that display of Southern ridiculousness and with a physical ball- curacy on her pinpoint passes crippling the usually dominant Mariner defense. To give you an idea of the impact Kennedy has had on the T-Wolves this year, she finished the season with 88 assists and lead the entire BCCAA in that category. Kwantlen College’s Emily Wright had the second most assists in the league with 66. Considering it was Kennedy's first year with her new UNBC teammates and she finished the season with 22 more assists than the next best ball mover, it’s pretty safe to say that she is an insanely incredible basketballer. Of course, Kennedy would not have been so effective if her passes had not lead to baskets, so her impressive stat line on Saturday must therefore give much love to UNBC’s dominant third-year post, Maria Neumann. Neumann provided the T- Wolves with an understated offensive game, hitting a huge per- centage of her short-range shots and put-backs. She was also a major factor in keeping the dynamic Mariner’s offense held to under 70 points as her exceptional first quarter, in which she landed two solid all-ball blocks, allowed her to establish a game-lasting presence in the defensive paint. T-Wolf megastar and primary scoring option, Kady Dande- neau made a triumphant return to the lineup after spending the past several games on the DL and was nothing short of out- standing as she tore her way to the UNBC player of the game award. She started off uncharacteristically slow and looked First Place Spot hawk like Stark on the floor that kind of behaviour is impossi- ble to get away with. The boost that Mills and Stark brought to the floor during the 4th quarter in which the T-Wolves managed to overcome a 15 point deficit and take the lead proved, once again, why Raimbault coaches the team while | just write down what it does, the man’s a situational genius. This innate knowledge of his bench depth was drastically important for Raimbault’s T- Wolves as the physical style of both teams had every player on the court in foul trouble eventually. The referees were clearly calling a different game than the players on the court wanted to play. It’s important for refs to understand, though few understand anything, that when two physical teams are trying to establish dominance over each other, in a physical battle, it is the refs’ duty to recognize this and ease off on calling penalties for physical contact. This did not happen and eventually both teams found themselves in the illustrious penalty situation before the game was done. Whilst the fouls the T-Wolves were being called on were based on fighting for loose balls and trying to fight for open space; the Mariners came with a very different physical strategy which, as far as | could tell, was to play as dirty as possible and inflict the most pain upon the T-Wolves as they could. Therefore the amount of flying elbows and smacks landed on T-Wolf faces was absurd. Fifth year Mariner Forward Joel Bron took the prison rules game strategy to a whole’n’other level when he stood in front of Sam Raphael at the top of the key and whipped the ball across Raphael's face sending him to the floor while the refs did nothing. Meanwhile on the other end of the Ee ee sluggish in the first Q, clutching the rock longer than normal while assessing a few too many dribble-directions. However by the second Q she had shaken her sillies out and returned to her dominant pre-injury form. She seems to have also changed her shooting style as the 3-bombs she was dropping on Saturday were landed from skyscraping arches, which hit with her usual outstanding precision and looked super cool. 5th year post, Soili Smith also returned from injury. Smith has seen her role decrease this year with the emergence of 3rd year posts: Maria Neumann and Erin Beckett. However having three solidly reliable post specialists gives Coach Mur- doch a tremendous luxury to set up mismatches against op- posing teams. It is an enormous advantage enjoyed by the T-Wolves to always have fresh legs in the paint landing blocks, finishing put-backs and owning the boards. Beckett’s emer- gence has been particularly rapid during her breakout T-Wolf season this year as she averaged 11.94 points per game, which was good enough to rank 11th overall in the BCCAA. Thanks to their impressive wins over the Mariners this past weekend, the women T-Wolves finish the season on top in the BCCAA standings. The provincial championships will be hosted in Nanaimo this year and commence on March 4th. So stay tuned to your favourite official campus newspaper for cov- erage of what will undoubtedly be a UNBC provincial champi- onship. From Mariners court Madsen was called for a blocking foul when his feet were obviously planted. Refs can be confusing animals. | will say a positive about the refs though and that is that the ref who recently shaved his comb over and now wears the buzzed look made an awesome decision when he did that, be- cause that dude’s comb over would not even fool Mr. Magoo out there. T-Wolf megastars Jose Araujo, who was the eventual UNBC player of the game, and Inderbir Singh Gill, played with their usual dominant precision. Araujo finished off the season ranked the 6th highest scorer in the BCCAA while Gill ranked 2nd in the same category. However it was the freshman Kevan Madsen and 2nd year fan favourite Sam Raphael who electri- fied the stadium delivering highlight after highlight and keeping the crowd on their feet screaming for more. The tandem of Raphael and Madsen guarding the key on defense provides the basketball equivalent of Sarah the Cat's netminding skills. To put the two in relation to prehistoric times, Raphael could easily jump over a dinosaur whereas Madsen could easily eat a dinosaur. They also combined to own the offensive and de- fensive boards. In fact Madsen finished the season with the 6th highest rebounds-per-game average in the BCCAA. Con- sidering this is his first year at this level, it will be awesome to experience the player he will mature into. The men’s UNBC T-Wolves will take this massive momen- tum to Nanaimo for the provincial championships, which start on March 4th. So stay tuned to your favourite official campus newspaper for coverage of what will undoubtedly be terrific coverage of the sensational UNBC T-Wolves. Huge news to announce!!! The Rollerderby season is starting up again! The first bout will be held on Saturday, February 27 at the Roll-a-dome. Doors open at 7 pm with the first whistle scheduled to blow at 8 pm. Do not miss this opportunity to experi- ence the greatest form of entertainment that Prince George has to offer. The Roll-a- dome is located near the Pine Centre Mall at the junction of the Yellowhead Highway (16) and the Hart Highway. Tickets are $8 | for members and $10 for non-members. This year there will be a beer garden at the bouts, which is pretty much the coolest news ever delivered. Hope to see you all there.