Lancers, Wings claim BSSI titles

One minute, the Dakota Lancers are in an air-tight affair. But blink and you’ll miss them dominate another provincial powerhouse for a few minutes.

That’s all the Lancers need when they defend as they did at the Brandon Sun Spartan Invitational.

Dakota defeated Oak Park 73-50 in the Victoria Inn Division (Tier 1) final at Vincent Massey on Saturday for its second tournament victory in three years.

While head coach Dean Favoni’s team has won the event three times now, the Lancers have also had their fair share of tough final losses.

“Winning is always fun,” Favoni said, adding the team came together late due to the school’s volleyball team reaching the AAAA provincial final two weeks ago.

“Thankfully, we’ve got lots of kids with lots of basketball experience, lots of kids with really good basketball IQ and they were able to put together a few things in short order to get the job done.”

One of those is tournament MVP Daniel Rom, who has been the focal point of Dakota’s offence since he started for the varsity team as a sophomore last year.

The six-foot-four guard handled the ball a ton last year, but struggled in the provincial final against Kildonan East. This weekend, he managed to average more than 20 points per game with much less time on the ball, and more working into the offence and leading the Lancers in transition.

“We have very capable point guards, so we play him off the ball. Lots of his points this weekend, even though his numbers were good, were kind of quiet,” Favoni said. “He spreads out his scoring, he knows when we need a bucket and when he has to go, and we’re working on a few things with him to try to vary how effective he becomes.

“This is a work in progress still, but he’s a pretty dynamic athlete and basketball player.”

Rom liked the way his team meshed all weekend, even though it has now had more games than practices.

He admitted the final wasn’t his best night. The Lancers led 41-35 at halftime but didn’t score for the next four minutes, letting the Raiders creep back within one possession.

But Alexandre Jean nailed a three to spark a 14-0 Dakota run, which spanned almost the rest of the quarter.

From there, Rom scored enough to match Oak Park’s offence and prevent anything resembling a comeback.

“Our team is super deep and we have a lot of skilled guys,” Rom said. “(Saturday), I wasn’t shooting great and everybody else contributed. Even when I’m not doing much, everyone else is still doing really well. They’re doing their part, they’re getting the job done and without me, we’re still a great team.

“Connor (Joubert) stepped up. Second half, Jed (Godfrey-Echichoya) stepped up really good on defence. He came in the first time and was a little lost, but when he came in the second time, he was getting stops and rebounds, and rebounds and rebounds. He was doing great.”

Dakota’s Brady Penner and Oak Park’s Taija Manalastas and Adam Kilmister made the all-star team, along with Jacob Medina of the Sisler Spartans, who defeated the Vincent Massey Vikings 95-93 for third place.

Massey’s Markus Stevenson rounded out the squad.

The final capped a whopping 80 games in three days.

“Thanks to Brett Nohr for taking over from Don Thomson on the BSSI,” Favoni said.

“This is a massive undertaking with all these teams and the people that organize this, especially Brett this year, should be congratulated.”

WINGS WIN TIER 2

The Linden Christian Wings nearly hit their wall four-and-a-half games into the BSSI.

But they dug deep and overcame their first halftime deficit of the weekend to beat the Carberry Cougars 66-63 in the Source for Sports Division (Tier 2) final at Vincent Massey on Saturday.

The Wings were down 38-31 at the break before a 17-2 run helped them pull ahead 14 after the third quarter, and they were able to hang on from there.

“Our strength is going to be our defence and getting out and running. We got that down in the third quarter, which allowed us to get out, head man the ball and get some easy layups,” said Linden Christian coach Colten Gryba, who brought his team back to the 32-team event after two years away.

“Don and Brett now do such a good job of running the tournament. You get lots of games early and you get to see where your team’s at.

“With shorter tournaments, you ride your heavy guys at the top but here you get to play everyone and see what everyone’s made of, so it’s really good.”

Wings guard Marco Byfield led the way on both ends of the floor, scoring a team-high 18 points in the game while helping limit the Cougars to just seven in the third quarter.

Byfield was impressed with his team’s grit to battle back.

“It was all team-focused. We all said, ‘We gotta band together.’ This is our first tournament of the season, it sets the pace for the rest of it. We gotta rely on each other, pass the ball, move it, look for open shots,” Byfield said.

“What we learned about ourselves is basketball is hard but when you’re a team, you can do anything. We’re just really grateful we were able to come out here, have a fun time but still come out with a victory.”

All-star Kolbie Wilson added 16 points for the Wings.

On the other side, the Cougars suffered their only loss of the weekend but left with their heads held high and confidence that they can rely on more than just all-stars Owen Unrau and Gabe Mignault, who dropped 27 and 22 points, respectively.

The dynamic duo are coming off a AA provincial volleyball championship run hungry for more.

“We want that clean sweep,” Unrau said, adding the rest of his teammates weren’t part of that run, so it’d be big to win or them.

“I want them to be able to experience what it’s like to win. I want them to experience how that feels.”

“This is a good result for us, as a good AA team,” he added. “We feel positive about even being at this game here. We felt positive after winning our pool … we’re happy to be here.”

Portage beat Glenboro-Baldur in the third-place game, with Cam Knott earning an all-star nod.

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com