St. Clair sweeps AUC (UPDATED)

The St. Clair Saints Men's and Women's varsity basketball teams entered action on Saturday looking for wins after splitting games with the Sault College Cougars on Friday night.

The women's game saw Algoma University get behind early against St. Clair, who is one of the top women's teams in the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association.

St. Clair opened the game on a 15-3 run and despite some points where AUC attempted to claw back, it wasn't enough as St. Clair battled to an 87-43 win. Rinjus Chbani led the way for St. Clair with 16 points, while Raquel Burke chipped in with 15, Kim Pawluk with 14 along with April Lounsbury and Nadine Phillip with 12 each.

For Algoma, Roberta Reid led the way with 12 points while veteran Stella Viotto chipped in with 11 in the loss.

AUC coach Dave Bourgeault said that the game wasn't quite as lopsided as the 87-43 score would suggest. Bourgeault also said that his team showed improvement over their showing last weekend in the Can/Am tournament in Alpena, Michigan.

"We were down 28-20 at one point," Bourgeault said. "Then we missed a layup that would have made it 28-22. Then we missed another shot which would have made it 28-24.

"We looked a whole lot better today than we did last weekend."

On the men's side, one day after dropping an 81-74 decision to Sault College, the St. Clair men rode a strong second half to an 81-61 victory over Algoma.

Jerome Forde led the way for St. Clair with 18 points.

Algoma University received strong efforts from Greg Sirie, who led all scorers with 23 points, Jason Trinier, who had 15, as well as Jacob Tomas and Kellan Stilin, who had 8 points and 7 points respectively.

The men's game was close for the most part as St. Clair led Algoma 39-35 at halftime but the Saints pulled away in the second half en route to the win.

"It was definitely an improvement from our last game," AUC Men's coach Enzo Torcaso, following the game. "We lost our mental focus though. We panicked and lost focus."

Torcaso went on to say that he was pleased with his team's play, especially the play of Trinier and Stilin.

The AUC Men's team now has some time off as they don't play another regular season game until they visit Niagara College and Redeemer University College on November 28th and 29th.

The Women's team is back in action next Saturday when they take on Mohawk College at the George Leach Centre on the AUC campus at noon.