X-Men win two games over Sea-Hawks, clinch AUS playoff bye

The CIS ranked No. 8 X-Men earned a pair of victories over the Memorial Sea-Hawks in Newfoundland this past weekend, picking up eight points and securing them an AUS playoff first round bye. Saturday evening the X-Men dominated the Sea-Hawks 103-64, followed by a 75-64 win on Sunday afternoon.

In Saturday’s victory, Terry Thomas scored a game high 29 points and also had seven rebounds and four assists. Bol Kong had 16 points, six rebounds, five assists and four steals as the blue and white won decisively over the AUS last place Sea-Hawks.

The X-Men came out of the gate hot, as they outscored Memorial 24-16 after one quarter. Thomas had 10 points in the first quarter for the visitors. The second quarter was much of the same for the X-Men as the offense was spread out between Kong, Thomas and Jeremy Dunn as the X-Men led 47-28 at half time. 

Memorial seemed to regroup after a break at halftime as they were outscored 26-25 by the X-Men. Dunn and Thomas each had six points in the quarter. The hometown Sea-Hawks were unable to sustain the pressure they had in the third quarter as the X-Men ran to a 103-64 win on the back of a 30 point fourth quarter. 

In addition to Thomas and Kong’s point totals, Dunn provided 11 points and five rebounds for StFX and Marquis Clayton scored 10 points and had six assists. Will Donkoh scored nine and Tyrell Vernon had eight points and four assists.

Jason Shepherd scored a team high 19 points for Memorial while Mike Helsby had 17 points and seven assists in a losing effort. Robbie Habib added 11 points.

The X-Men shot 57.4% from field goal range, 50% from the three point line and 80% from the free throw line while the Sea-Hawks were 39.7% from field goal range, 35.7% from three point range and 72.7% from the free throw line.

In Sunday’s game the Sea-Hawks were able to close the gap in the point differential, particularly in the first half, although StFX was still able to come away with the 75-64 victory.

Memorial started the game very strong as they outscored the X-Men 23-15 after one quarter of play. The X-Men came back to hold a 21-14 scoring advantage in the second quarter as the Sea-Hawks led by a one point margin at half time 37-36. The X-Men were able to take away the first half momentum that Memorial mounted and turned it in their favor in the second half as they doubled the Sea-Hawks 18-9 in the third quarter. Marquis Clayton had a solid quarter for StFX, racking in seven points. The X-Men than finished off the last quarter outscoring the Sea-Hawks 21-18 on route to the 75-64 victory over the hosts.

Jeremy Dunn and Jordan Clarke were the high scorers for the X-Men, as Dunn collected 15 points and Clarke 12 for the victorious X-Men. Clarke also had six assists and two steals in the game. Tyrell Vernon scored 11 points and had four assists while Clayton scored 10, dished five assists and had two blocks. Terry Thomas had eight points and eight rebounds and Bol Kong pulled down seven rebounds for the blue and white.

Mike Helsby racked in 20 points, seven rebounds, six assists and three steals for the Sea-Hawks while Jason Shepherd poured in 16 points in a losing cause for the Sea-Hawks. Caleb Gould scored 13 points and Mark Woodland had 11.

After the big weekend the first place StFX X-Men (15-4) move to 42 points in the standings and hold a commanding 10 point lead over UPEI, Cape Breton and Acadia, who all have 32 points in a three-way tie for second place. The X-Men will play the fifth place Saint Mary’s Huskies (9-9) in their final game of the season next Saturday, February 25th at 8:00 pm in Antigonish.