Familiar Gold Medal Foes

#1 VIU Mariners vs #3 Capilano Blues – Saturday March 1, 8:00pm | WATCH HERE

The final PACWEST basketball game of the season will decide the men’s gold medal when the Mariners and Blues meet on Saturday night.  This is the third time in four seasons that they tip off for the Conference title.

On Friday afternoon the Mariners beat the CBC Bearcats by 14 points in a physical semi-final while the Blues needed double overtime to upset the Camosun Chargers to advance.

During the regular season they played four times with the Mariners winning three of them.   The lone Blues win was by 10-points, the last time they met which was a month ago at VIU.

In their semi-final win the Mariners shot just under 40% and were led by Kam Bender and his 20 points, but they did get production from several players including Kaeleb Johnson who had 15 points and 10 rebounds.  They will need another balanced offence when they meet the Blues on Saturday night. Incredibly, this is their 16^th straight trip to the Conference championship game.

Friday night the Blues won a thrilling double overtime game to upset the Chargers and will no doubt ride that emotional victory into the gold medal game.  They had a gutsy performance shooting 33% and made timely stops defensively down the stretch and in overtime.

The winner of this game has their season continue and will represent the PACWEST at the CCAA national championship tournament in two weeks in Quebec.