Trent Monkman is in making an impression as a freshman with his Thompson Rivers University (TRU) basketball team.
The Smithers grad and high school high jump record holder had 11 points, three defensive rebounds, three assists and a steal in just 22 minutes of play in the third and deciding game of the first round playoff against the Brandon Bobcats Sunday.
TRU beat Brandon 94-81, coming back to win two in a row after losing the first game of the series.
The WolfPack took advantage of some 'cool' Brandon shooting and jumped to a ten point lead after the first quarter. In the second quarter, After TRU went on a 9-0 run to open it, Brandon started to pick it up going on runs of 13-2 early and 8-0 late.
Brandon turned things around in the third quarter as they outscored TRU 36-22 to cut the deficit to six points.
The Pack had three players: Volodymyr Iegorov (5th year, forward, Donetsk, Ukraine), Joe Davis (2nd year, forward, Kamloops, BC) and Madhu McConnell (1st year, guard, Victoria, BC) all foul out.
Luke Morris (4th year, forward, Mission, BC) led the way for TRU with 25 points.
The WolfPack will play the number one ranked Calgary Dinos in a best of three quarter final series Feb. 23-26 in Calgary. All three games will have 6 p.m. PDT start times.
The teams met in the regular season with The Dinos winning both nights. Those games were played at the Tournament Capital Centre on Feb. 3-4. Calgary won the first night 84-76 and 76-60 the second.
Calgary and TRU met in the 2015-16 Canada West final which was held at the Jack Simpson Memorial Gym at the U of C. The Dinos won that game as well.
You can see those games on a pay per view basis by logging onto CanadawestTV.org.
SCORES BY PERIOD:
TRU 26 22 22 24 94
BRANDON 13 15 36 17 81
TURNOVERS:
Brandon 15 TRU 14
STEALS:
Brandon 9 TRU 6
POINTS IN THE PAINT:
Brandon 38 TRU 24
BENCH POINTS:
TRU 19 Brandon 13