Box Score

A late push by Trinity Western propelled the Spartans to a 67-59 win over the University of Regina on Saturday night in a Canada West men's basketball game in Langley, B.C.

The teams battled through eight tie scores and 11 lead changes until a 14-0 run by Trinity Western over a span of four minutes in the fourth quarter turned a tied game into a double-digit advantage for the Spartans, who improve to 9-9 on the season with the win.

Denny McDonald led Trinity Western with 20 points as the Spartans' starting five accounted for all but five of their points. Justin Bakuteka scored 15, while Kelvin Smith added 13 points and Robert Rodriguez led all players with 11 rebounds.

Travis Sylvestre started in place of an injured Brandon Tull and scored a career-high 17 points, 15 of which were in the first half alone. Brendan Hebert and Matthew Augustine both had 11 points, while Hebert also had a team-high five assists and Darius Mole chipped in with eight points and a team-leading eight rebounds.

The two teams were never separated by more than three points in the first quarter and the tight play continued into the second. Back-to-back three-pointers by Smith and Bakuteka finally gave Trinity Western an eight-point lead with three minutes left in the first half, but the Cougars scored the final nine points of the second – all on three pointers, first by Augustine and then two by Hebert on consecutive possessions – to go into halftime with a 35-33 lead.

Both teams then went cold in the third quarter, as Trinity Western shot just 4-for-18 from the field and the Cougars were 3-for-17. The Spartans outscored the U of R by a 12-8 margin in the third to take a slim two-point lead into the final period, which was tight until Trinity Western's big run that started with about six minutes remaining.

NOTES: Hebert now has 345 career assists and needs just three to surpass Zach Michell for the University of Regina's all-time lead.