Mounties Fall to 1st place Hurricanes; Host ACAA Playoff Game Wednesday March 9th
The Mount Allison Mounties completed their regular season schedule with a road loss in Charlottetown last Friday, falling to the first place Holland College Hurricanes 103-88. The Mounties, 7-5, finish the revised 12 game ACAA schedule with a third-place finish and will host a playoff game this Wednesday night at 8:00pm against their NS archrival, the Mount Saint Vincent Mystics of Halifax. The winner advances to an ACAA semi-final against the St. Thomas Tommies Friday night who finished the year at 9-3 and second place behind the 11-1 Hurricanes. They will take on the winner of the Crandall Chargers – UKC Blue Devils also on Friday in Charlottetown.
On Friday against the Hurricanes, the Mounties could not overcome a large first half deficit resulting in the 15-point road loss. According to coach Steve Chapman, “we never got going until the second half and you simply can’t fall behind as we did against a very good Holland team, especially on their home court. We defended poorly, they shot the lights out and we just simply put ourselves in too deep a hole to recover from. We were not our best, but we saw a lot of good things from our guys over the last 20 minutes to build on heading into the playoffs”. Holland’s Jashajuan Downey led all scorers with 38 points, followed by Jalen Menzies with 16 and Bryce Corless with 15. The Mounties, who had defeated the Hurricanes at home a week earlier 86-74, were led by Sam Pierson with 17, Igor Radic with 12 and Minwoo Park, Sam Lutz, Noah McCarthy all with 11.
Now its playoff time. The Mounties enter their ¼ final playoff game this Wednesday with lots of previous ACAA playoff success. They have been in the ACAA championship game three of the past four years, culminating in their ACAA Championship victory in March of 2020. Much has changed since then. According to Chapman, ‘coaches throughout the league entered the season knowing the league was very balanced and that on any given night you would have to be at your best to get wins. That’s exactly what has played out in what has been an unpredictable year for everyone to say the least in terms of everyone dealing with injuries, crazy close games, and covid related challenges. Now it comes down to which team can play through some adversity, play well at the right time, and get it rolling for a few games over a grinding week with the new playoff format. It should be an interesting week for sure”
Wednesday will see a double header for the host Mountie teams. The Mountie women will host the UKC Blue Devils in their ¼ final matchup in a 6:00pm start while the men take on the Mystics at 8:00pm. Both games will be on acaatv.ca
Go Mounties!