With a berth in the Canadian college men’s basketball championship within their grasp, the Lakeland Rustlers watched those hoops dreams slip out of their hands on their home court Friday night.
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In a crushing defeat, the Rustlers lost 86-67 to the Lethbridge Kodiaks in the late semifinal at the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) championship on the Lakeland campus.
It was a doubly disappointing result for the Rustlers, because both ACAC finalists were guaranteed berths in the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association nationals, which run March 18-21 at Nanaimo, B.C.
Those representatives from the Alberta conference are the champion Keyano Huskies and runner-up Lethbridge, which lost 86-79 to the Fort McMurray school in the gold-medal game Saturday evening.
Lakeland’s season ended with an 89-80 loss to the SAIT Trojans in the bronze-medal game earlier Saturday. SAIT was an unbeaten team all season before losing 66-63 to Keyano in their semifinal matchup.
For the host Rustlers, it was difficult to forget the game that got away from them in their semifinal setback against Lethbridge. The one-sided result, and the way that game transpired, were in stark contrast to the atmosphere on the previous night, as a ramped-up Rustlers side played with authority and rode the emotion of a packed gym to clip Calgary’s Ambrose Lions 93-74 in quarter-final play.
In the end, basketball is a game of runs, and Lakeland had too few of those scoring sequences to mount a serious threat against Lethbridge, which came out strong and didn’t waver from that script. The Kodiaks led 22-14 after the first quarter and 44-32 at halftime.
“A lot of things combined that resulted in that loss,” said Bahaeddin (Baha) Salma, a graduating Rustler from Saskatoon.
“We didn’t come out and execute. They got a lot of fast breaks on us. We didn’t play our defence to what we could have. I was in foul trouble — I was on the bench a lot — so, there was also that.
“We had 24 turnovers. The other team shot 50 per cent from the field. They shot almost 40 per cent from the three-point line. That’s almost elite-level territory. All the main points that we were supposed to take away, they executed. So, good on (the Kodiaks). They’re a really good team.”
Lethbridge standout Levi Balderson, playing bigger than his wiry frame might suggest, put on a clinic with a 28-point performance. Nathaniel Hosannah poured in 19 and Randall Mongard added 18.
The top gun for Lakeland was the ever-passionate Jordan Horobetz-Simpson, with 24 points. His teammate and fellow first-team all-conference selection, Taleh Wade, had 14 points.
The most jump the Rustlers showed was in the early minutes of the third quarter, but they still had difficulty closing the wide gap to within 10 points. Their frustration began to spill onto the court as all-star players had words with each other.
“It’s the heat of the moment,” Horobetz-Simpson said. “Everybody is thinking the same thing. It’s just about how you express it. Obviously, I’ve had my problems in the past, with just getting on guys.
“I’m just so passionate and it shows in a way that it looks like aggression. But I know how good our guys can be. When I see them doing stuff that we don’t usually do, it bothers me.”
For most of this year, the Rustlers played the right way, posting a 17-3 record in the regular season to finish first in the North Division. That form was evident in their quarter-final triumph, before the semifinal letdown Friday.
“Man, it was just a rough night,” said Horobetz-Simpson, a Winnipeg native who spent last season with this year’s U Sports champions, the Carleton Ravens. “Maybe the crowd (support) got in our heads a little bit and we were looking ahead too much. I’m not sure.
“But just nothing was clicking. Our flaws really showed today. Stuff that we’ve been working on all year. The consistent problems that we had, they all just decided to pop up today.
“But I’m proud of everyone, at the end of the day, no matter how we played. Nobody wanted to lose this game. Guys wanted to fight. Guys wanted to go to Nanaimo, obviously. We just didn’t get it done this time. There’s really not much else to say.”
A reflective Salma saluted Lakeland’s fans and his coaches, especially head coach Sheray Thomas. Graduating with a science degree, Salma said he’ll look back fondly on his five years as a Rustler.
“My coaches, they believed in me, and they trusted me,” he said. “To have that, it builds my confidence and my character. It’s not something that is false. Not everyone can have that trust.
“Coach (Thomas) is a serious coach. He was (ACAC) coach of the year, back-to-back, so he knows what he’s talking about. He played at Kentucky. It just solidifies myself, having his trust.”
Salma played through pain in the second half of the season, wearing a protective mask after breaking his nose in a game against Keyano. He plans to settle back home in Saskatoon but hopes to stay connected with the Rustlers.
“Even on a night like this, you could see the support was crazy,” said Salma, the ACAC North’s defensive player of the year and a second-team all-conference choice.
“Everybody is chanting our names, ‘Let’s go Baha. Let’s go Lakeland.’ I’ll never forget that. The community here is unmatched. When you go to other places, they’re not coming out to games like that. The whole school is behind us. We’re respected.”
With a chuckle, he added: “It’s a little cold and there’s not much to do. But I like that. It allows me to get my schoolwork done, be locked in on basketball and have a focused mind.”
SAIT 89, LAKELAND 80 (bronze-medal game): The Trojans’ Marcus Masters, with 23 points, turned in a masterful performance in a battle of the two teams many pundits had expected to see in the gold-medal game, and not the third-place contest. Logan Bennett added 19 points for SAIT, which led 44-38 at the intermission.
Salma sunk 20 points in his final game as a Rustler. Wade had 15, Matthew Bryant 12, Horobetz-Simpson 11 and Seth Johnson 10.
KEYANO 86, LETHBRIDGE 79 (gold-medal game): The teams were tied 42-42 at halftime and the Huskies took a two-point lead into the fourth quarter.
Keyano’s balanced attack included 19 points from Evan Meyer, 17 from Sammuel Nkassa and 15 from DJ Haynes.
The Kodiaks’ top scorers were Balderson with 24, Hosannah with 18 and Mongard with 15.
In the fifth-place game at the eight-team ACAC championship tournament, the NAIT Ooks defeated the Concordia Thunder 78-70 in an all-Edmonton clash.
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