Yoosrie Salhia knows the Lakehead Thunderwolves are running out of opportunities.
Salhia and the Wolves on Friday failed for the third straight year to advance out of the first round at the CIS Final 8 men's basketball championship. Once again they fell to a British Columbia-based opponent, this time an 83-71 decision at the hands of the University of Fraser Valley Cascades.
"It's very disappointing, there's not much to say," said said LU's hobbled pivot, who found foul trouble early on and spent the entire fourth quarter with just one to give.
"I still feel that we didn't play our best, but at the end of the day you can't keep saying that, especially when you're at nationals. It's our opportunity to win the championship and there's not much to say, we just lost."
The Cascades forced the Wolves to the perimeter, and with Ryan Thomson on the sidelines with an injured foot and Ben Johnson unable to find a shooting lane, the Wolves only hit on 11 of 35 shots from beyond the arc.
That wasn't good enough against the Cascades, content to take only the open threes that arose and who made 44 per cent of all the shots they took in the matinee affair, the opening game at the eight-team tournament being contested this weekend at the Halifax Metro Centre.
"I think we struggled a little bit with recognizing the CIS three-point line. I think we were taking some pretty deep threes. But besides that, I just think we just didn't bring our all," said Salhia, who finished with four points and 11 rebounds and is pinning his hopes on next year, his fifth and final in a Thunderwolves uniform, to finally bring home that elusive national title.
"Yeah, it's our last run. For a lot of us it's next year or never, so we're going to try to have a good offseason and come here again."
Forward Matt Schmidt, who filled in for Thomson and hit a pair of early threes as the Wolves and Cascades went back-and-forth with the lead, didn't mince words describing how he felt.
"It sucks," the fourth-year Thunder Bay native said. "It's the third year in a row we've lost in the first round. We have such high expectations for our team. We were going for a championship. It just really sucks. There's nothing we can do about it now but just move forward and try to play our best tomorrow to try to win the consolation."
Evicted from the championship side of the one-and-done bracket, the Wolves will have to settle to equal last year's fifth place finish and a pair of wins on the consolation side.
They'll take on Wolfville, N.S.'s Acadia Axemen, the No. 8 seed, who fell 82-68 to No. 1 Carleton Friday in the tournament's second game.
Just as disappointed with the loss as his players was Lakehead coach Scott Morrison, whose team trailed 17-13 after 10 minutes and 34-29 at the half, a lead they retook when player of the game Sheldon Bjorgaard buried a three in the final minute of play and extended on baskets by Joel Friesen and all-star Kyle Grewal.
"We just couldn't get the key stops, there were a couple of key boards we missed and we had trouble finishing on the offensive end," said Morrison, refuting talk of a curse by comparing his team to the Boston Red Sox, who went 86 years between World Series wins.
"We're not done making noise."
They also had trouble at the line in the third, which saw UFV extend its lead to seven, 58-51. Venzal Russell, who tied Joseph Jones with 20 points to lead all scorers, missed a pair of foul shots early in the quarter that would have kept the Wolves within five.
Minutes later, trailing by eight, Salhia went to the line and missed both of his shots and the Cascades stormed down the court and pulled ahead by 11 when Bjorgaard drained a trey.
Bjorgaard said it took a little while to get the jitters out of the way, but once they did, the Cascades were good to go.
"Yeah, it was our first time in the tournament and obviously we had a little bit of nerves and everything. But we just stuck to our game plan, we kept competing and we didn't quit and got open looks and just knocked them down," Bjorgaard said.
"We've had a lot of close games. Our last two playoff games were won by one point, so we're kind of used to the pressure now."
Russell, who sat early with a pair of first-quarter fouls, found his form in the third, and looked to be ready to spark a comeback bid. A pair of steals and four points on back-to-back plays pulled Lakehead to within five at 56-51, but the Cascades reeled off three straight hoops to climb back on top by 12. Jones made a four-point play with to make it 79-71, but it was as close as the Thunderwolves would come.
Bjorgaard knows Fraser Valley won't have as easy a task on Saturday, but is looking forward to the chance to take on the nation's finest.
"We're just looking forward to the opportunity at this point to compete against the best and to prove ourselves," he said.
Beyond the arc: Friesen went down with a foot injury, but was able to walk on it after the game and said he thinks he'll be able to go against Carleton. Grewal finished with 17 for UFV ... Playing in his home province, Lakehead's Ben Johnson managed but a single bucket and took just five shots all game, despite playing a team-high 35 minutes ... Russell was named player of the game for Lakehead. The Acadia/Lakehead game starts Saturday at 11 a.m. EST. ... Lakehead was just 23-71 from the field.
