Providence Pilots soar to championship on home court

System basketball at Providence College is here to stay.

The school clinched a Manitoba Colleges Athletic Association championship on their home court at the Niverville Resource and Rec Centre Feb. 15, defeating Canadian Mennonite University 69-58 to cap off an undefeated MCAC season.

Kendall Perpal, who took over for now-athletic director Joel Coursey has put his own twist on what the school calls system basketball, with the team cycling through hockey-style line changes every couple minutes.

With offense hard to come by in the final quarter, Perpall mixed up those lines, putting out a group of more veteran players who rose to the occasion to close out the victory. The Pilots didn’t hit a field goal until more than six minutes into the final frame, relying on a couple foul shots and their strong defense to close out a feisty CMU squad.

“Defense and fast break points are what really got us this game,” Perpall said.

“We had a lot of good quality shots that did not go in, but our defense and our fast breaks, when we took them and made them, that helped us get this low scoring win.”

The finishing squad is nicknamed “the P-line,” and they showed their value, with Sydney Last hitting a devastating three to turn a two-point lead into a five-point one and ice the game, along with some clutch free throws from the whole team.

“Our old coach (Coursey) enforced the system a lot, the short shifts, there’d be occasional times of longer minutes,” championship most valuable player Faith Larocque said.

“With KP coming into this year, he really wanted to put his own spin on it, and that involved putting together ‘the P-line.’”

The normal rotation for Providence was thrown into chaos after Briana Buchan went down with injury in the first quarter. She was part of that top line that dominated the first quarter for the Pilots, as they jumped out to a 14-point lead at one point.

If basketball had referee stoppages like in boxing, the Pilots may have forced one in the first quarter, as the team’s top line went to work, forcing steal after steal with their full-court press and giving the team a lead they never surrendered, despite a valiant CMU effort to close the gap.

“It really is played like any other shift,” Larocque said, remembering those crucial minutes.

“It’s an intense game, we play a lot with each other and it just so happened that we just made a lot in that shift.”

The Blazers were able to pull back within eight as the buzzer sounded to end the half.

“The knockout is not good enough,” Perpall added.

“We scored 30 (in the first quarter), and we had 30 until the last four minutes of the second.”

Larocque was brilliant on both ends for the Pilots both in their first-line cycle and late-game veteran line-up.

“She was a tenacious rebounder, getting those second chance points” Perpall said.

The junior from Niverville finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds, adding plenty of blocks and steals on the defensive end as well.

There is no rest for the Pilots as they have already left Manitoba to play at the Northern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament, which includes schools from the northern U.S.A. The top three teams at the tournament last year were all from Manitoba.

In the men’s final, hosted at CMU in Winnipeg later that night, the University of St Boniface Les Rouges pulled off the upset victory, hoisting their first-ever MCAC trophy in men’s basketball.

They were led by championship game MVP Triston Gibbons who finished with 21 points and 18 rebounds to upset the previously undefeated Blazers.

“Today was super special. Every time we kept playing this team, we kept progressing,” championship MVP Tristan Gibbons said in a MCAC news release.

“This was the first year we changed the culture a lot. We weren’t good, we were at the bottom, but this year we all committed as a team. I love my teammates, I love my coaches, this is a great start.”

VOLLEYBALL

In a pre-season surprise, Providence’s women’s volleyball team is missing out on the Manitoba post-season, dropping a pair of crucial games this weekend and falling to fourth in the MCAC standings.

The team will still play at the upcoming Canadian Colleges Athletic Association national championships as the host.

On the men’s side, Providence clinched a spot in the final, and will play the winner between CMU and Assiniboine College in a best-of-three final. Games will be Feb. 27-March 1 in Niverville.

FUTSAL

Providence is also hosting the MCAC futsal championships, which are taking place this weekend. The Pilots finished second in the women’s standing and will play USB in a semi-final match Feb. 21st in the afternoon.

The men’s team finished fourth, and will be playing top-ranked USB. The women’s and men’s final will be Feb. 22 at 1 and 3 p.m. respectively.

Futsal games will be played at the Providence campus in Otterburne.