Scheduled Game: BRITISH COLUMBIA*

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GAME RESULTS 1 2 3 4 T British Columbia 22 23 15 18 78 Trinity Western 15 20 21 31 87 « FINAL

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Game Recap

Men's Basketball (Canada West)
Thursday, January 08, 2009
TWU Spartans (87) vs. the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds (78)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SPARTANS SHOCK NO 2 THUNDERBIRDS
-TWU wins sixth straight Canada West contest

LANGLEY, British Columbia - Louis Hurd's (Spokane, Wash.)14 fourth quarter points and Jacob Doerksen's (Abbotsford, B.C.) 30 points and 14 rebounds led the unranked Trinity Western University Spartans to a stunning 87-78 victory over the No. 2 University of British Columbia Thunderbirds Thursday night at TWU's Langley, B.C. campus.

"My teammates where telling me to keep shooting. They have an unbelievable amount of confidence in me. That's just the way they've been the whole year," commented Hurd on his fourth quarter scoring explosion. "This goes out to my teammates, to be honest. They stand behind be through the good times and the hard times, without them that wouldn't happen."

"They [UBC] were hitting a lot of shots, but we knew we were playing well and we just needed a couple of shots to drop," commented Jacob Doerksen on the team's mindset in the comeback. "We knew they would cool off, so we stuck with it and kept our energy high and played well until the end."

Chris Dyck (Winnipeg) scored 21 points for the Thunderbirds, who lose for only the second time in Canada West play this season. The loss drops the first place Thunderbirds to 12-2 while the win moves the Spartans to 9-5 and into a second place tie with Victoria at 9-4.

The Spartans started the game on fire and quickly jumped out to a 7-0 lead. But the top ranked Thunderbirds settled and by the end of the first quarter had built a 22-15 lead and by the end of the half were up 10 points, 45-35.

Trinity Western found their rhythm in the second half. The Spartans used a solid third quarter to outscore the Thunderbirds by six points, 21-15 to make it a four point game, 60-56, heading into the final ten minutes.

After the first three minutes of the fourth it looked like the Thunderbirds were going to go home with the hard fought victory, as a deep three pointer by Josh Whyte (Calgary) gave the visitors a solid eight point lead, 68-60.

Then things started to roll the Spartans way as Doerksen and Hurd brought the house down for the Spartan Faithful. TWU used the inside-outside game to outscore UBC 21 to two to take an 81-70 lead with just over a minute remaining. The Thunderbirds put full court pressure on the Spartans and put TWU on the foul line to try and get back in the game, but to no avail as the Spartans went five-for-five from the foul line to seal the nine point victory.

"This isn't a surprise for us, we knew we could do this," commented Hurd on the Spartans mindset after the comeback. "We just got to stick together, love each other and things will fall into place."

TWU also had strong performances from Brian Banman (Kelowna, B.C.) with 18 points, six assists and five rebounds and Jamie Vaughan (Chilliwack, B.C.) with 13 points and eight assists. For UBC the Thunderbirds also had Blain Labranche (Edmonton) with 13 points and Matt Rachar (Burnaby, B.C.) with 12 points hit double digits in scoring.

TWU will now host the University of Victoria on Saturday at 8 p.m., while UBC will travel to Simon Fraser University for a Saturday evening match.

Game Notes: With the win TWU has now won eight of their last nine games after starting the season 0-3...TWU outrebounded UBC 42-32...the Spartans shot 49 percent (32-65) from the field, 20 percent from the three point line (5-25) and 75 percent from the foul line (18-24), while UBC shot 41 percent (24-58), 37.5 percent (9-24) and 63.6 percent (21-33) respectively... UBC beat TWU 96-89 in overtime and 71-59 earlier in the season...

-TW-

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