St. Clair Basketball Host Canadore and Niagara this Weekend

St. Clair Basketball Host Canadore and Niagara this Weekend

The St. Clair College Basketball teams host their final OCAA West Division regular season home games this weekend at the SportsPlex as the Men face off against Canadore College (North Bay) Saturday night before Niagara College (Welland) visits for a doubleheader on Sunday.

The Canadore Men (3-12) will look to keep their playoff hopes alive and upset the Saints (11-3, West 1st Place) who dropped slightly to the 11th ranked team in Canada and the 3rd spot in the OCAA poll. 4th year 6’2” swing player Thomas Gowland (Courtice, ON) leads the Panthers at 17.1ppg which stands 8th provincially while 2nd year 6’0” guard Corey Boochoon (Sturgeon Falls, ON) has made the 2nd most 3-pointers (45) in the province for Canadore as part of his 11.8ppg. 2nd year 5’9” guard Ty Huxtable (Orillia, ON) sets the table for Canadore and averages the 2nd most assists at 6.7 per game to go with 14.4ppg. Rookie 6’2” forward Logan Whitmell (Sault Ste. Marie, ON) rounds out the double-digit scorers for the Panthers at 12.6ppg. Tip time is set for 6:00pm on Saturday between Canadore and the St. Clair Men.

Saints’ 5th year 6’4” forward Chad Vincent-Simon (Scarborough, ON) is creeping up the provincial scoring charts and is now 5th best at 20.0ppg while adding 6.0 rebounds per game. 5th year 6’3″ guard Jesiah Deerr (Whitby, ON) averages 15.2ppg for the Saints with rookie guard Andrew Loyuk (Windsor, ON/Kennedy) leading the team with 4.1 assists per game (OCAA 5th) to go with 13.9ppg. The final Saints in double figures include 3rd year 6’7” transfer forward Mazin Tiea (Windsor, ON/Kennedy) at 12.1ppg and 3rd year 6’4″ transfer forward Galdo Tutu (Windsor, ON) at 10.4ppg.

The St. Clair Men are still the highest scoring team in the province at 97.3 points per contest while their Sunday opponent Niagara puts up 85.9 per game (OCAA 8th). Tip time is 3:00pm on Sunday for the Saints and Knights (10-5, West T-2nd) in a game that will determine playoff positioning for the teams at the top of the division. Niagara has a balanced scoring attack with four players averaging double figures but with none over 14.0ppg while their approach spreads minutes amongst 11 players. 4th year 6’6” forward Kenneth Reckley Jr. (Nassau, Bahamas) might be their most difficult match-up as he leads the teams in rebounding (6.9 per game) and is 3rd provincially in blocked shots (1.5 per game) while scoring 10.1ppg. 4th year 6’4 small forward Raheem Dennis (Mississauga, ON) is Niagara’s top scorer at 13.9ppg. On December 1st Niagara humbled the Saints by a score of 83-66 in Welland.

In another pivotal game the St. Clair Women (11-2, West T-1st) tip against Niagara (10-3, 3rd West) at 1:00pm on Sunday. The Saints are 3rd ranked provincially and just ahead of the 4th rated Knights and while St. Clair moved up to #13 nationally this week. In their other meeting this season in early December the Saints topped Niagara 70-57 at their Welland campus gym.

St. Clair’s 5th year transfer guard Kaitlyn Overeem (Brantford, ON) is making a case for the best scorer in the OCAA by averaging 21.8ppg which stands 2nd in the province all while setting up her teammates with 5.1 assists per game to go with a team best 7.7 rebounds per contest.

Niagara will counter with 3rd year 6’0” swing player Janee Harrison (St. Catharines, ON) who tops the Knights at 13.5ppg while shooting 3rd best in the province from long distance converting over 39%. A recent addition this semester to Niagara in rookie 6’0” swing player Destiny Osadebamwen (Toronto, ON/Venice, ITA) has brought some extra concern for St. Clair as she is averaging 10.0ppg and 7.0rpg in her four games.

Prior to the tip-off of the Men’s game on Sunday the Saints will be recognizing their graduating players including Chad Vincent-Simon, Hanani Ujullu and Glynn Willis-Paris. At halftime of that game the Cross-Country program will be honouring graduate runner Michael Horrobin.