REDS Bow Out In Loss To Sea-Hawks

(HALIFAX, NS) The UNB REDS Atlantic University Sport men's basketball season came to an end Friday afternoon in an 87-79 loss to the Memorial Sea-Hawks, in the quarter-finals of the AUS Championship Tournament.

The REDS had an impressive opening half, building an eight-point lead, 49-41, going to the break.

But that's where things changed.

The No. 5 seeded Sea-Hawks took control in the third quarter and never looked back.

And they opened the fourth quarter with a 13-0 run, something the No. 4 seeded REDS could not recover from.

"I'm disappointed, obviously, there are a lot of disappointed guys in the locker room, but I think we deserved it," said REDS head coach Joe Salerno. "We played a pretty poor second half and this one is going to hurt because I think we had the potential to do something in this tournament and we didn't put four quarters together."

Emmanuel Ring (St. John's, NL) led the Sea-Hawks attack, scoring a game-high 26 points, including 19 in the second half.

"They had a huge fourth quarter," said Coach Salerno. "They shot extremely well, a couple of their veteran guys really stepped up. For me, it looked like we're still a really young team out there in the second half, poor shot selection and poor decision-making when it mattered most, and we paid heavily for that."

Second-year guard Marcus Barnes (Kitchener, ON) led the REDS with 19 points and seven rebounds while veteran forward Norm Burry (Grafton, NB) scored 15 points and grabbed nine rebounds.

AUS Defensive Player of the Year Javordo Mitchell (Woodbridge, ON) came off the REDS bench to score 13 points. Vegas Evans (Brampton, ON) added 14.

Flynn Boardman-Raffett (London, UK) scored 24 points for Memorial while grabbing eight rebounds. Jodick Moudiambu (Hamilton, ON) scored eight of his 11 points in the fourth quarter.

"We are a team, and we don't point fingers," said Salerno. "We all played a part in the loss and all of us need to look back at our own performance. We keep stressing the fact that you win together, and you lose together, you perform well together, you perform poorly together, and we did that in the second half."

While the REDS season comes to an end, the Sea-Hawks now prepare to face the top-seeded STFX X-Men in Saturday's semi-finals.

RECAP BY: Andy Campbell/UNB Athletics

PHOTOS BY: Nick Pearce/for Atlantic University Sport