It’s official. The Lakeland Rustlers will host the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference men’s basketball championship March 5-7 at their campus gym in Lloydminster.
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With their 85-71 victory at home last Saturday, the Rustlers completed a weekend home-and-home sweep of Camrose’s Augustana Vikings and clinched the playoff-hosting rights. Lakeland won 74-57 on the road Friday night.
Although there’s still three weeks left in the regular season, Saturday (Jan. 31) was the cutoff date to determine which North Division team would host the ACAC’s eight-team championship tournament.
Lakeland and the Keyano College Huskies of Fort McMurray each own 13-3 records, but the Rustlers gained the hosting rights based on a favourable points-for-and-against difference (171-154) in the two games they split with those Huskies this season.
Winning five and four straight games, respectively, Lakeland and Keyano both made strong pushes in the past few weeks while shooting to become the playoff host.
The NAIT Ooks of Edmonton were also in contention for the hosting rights but hit a roadblock last weekend when Keyano beat them twice, helping Lakeland in the process.
With an 11-5 record, the Ooks have clinched a playoff berth. They sit four points behind the Rustlers and Huskies.
Two Edmonton schools — King’s (6-10) and Concordia (5-10) — are fighting for the fourth and final playoff position in the North Division.
The Final 8 tournament will include four South Division teams, most notably the unbeaten SAIT Trojans (16-0) of Calgary and the defending champion Briercrest Clippers (13-4) of Caronport, Sask.
Briercrest was victorious on its home court as host of last year’s ACAC championship. The previous year, Keyano won the league title at home.
Hoping to continue that playoff trend next month, the Rustlers are 8-2 in their past 10 games.
In its Saturday win, Lakeland received 24 points from Taleh Wade, 22 from Jordan Horobetz-Simpson and 11 from Seth Johnson.
In the Rustlers’ Friday victory, Wade netted 19 points, Horobetz-Simpson added 17 points and 11 rebounds, and teammate Bahaeddin Salma contributed 12 points.
The Lakeland women lost two more games last weekend — 80-40 on Friday and 79-34 on Saturday — against Augustana. The last-place Rustlers are winless in 16 games this season, while the Vikings are fourth in the North with an 11-3 slate.
On Saturday, the Lakeland duo of Declynn Wood and Taylor Hebert scored 11 and 10 points, respectively. Reese Fenrich had 15 rebounds.
The night before, the Rustlers’ Sadie Spenrath meshed a game-high 18 points.
This weekend, both the Lakeland women and men are off. They go up against NAIT twice on the Feb. 13-14 weekend, with games Friday in Lloydminster and Saturday in Edmonton.
On the final weekend of the ACAC basketball regular season (Feb. 20 and 21), both the men’s and women’s Rustlers visit the Northwestern Wolves of Grande Prairie for two games each.
Read more: Lakeland Rustlers regroup to split with NAIT
