A Battle of the Blues
The Capilano Blues face the Durham Blues on Thursday
The Capilano Blues will make their first appearance at the CCAA national championship since 2011 on Thursday at 4:00pm PST.
Tuesday the Blues began their travels to Sackville New Brunswick and Mount Allison University flying from Vancouver to Toronto. However due to a winter storm the were forced to spend the night in Toronto before finally landing in New Brunswick on Wednesday just in time for the national banquet.
The Blues will face the undefeated RSEQ champion Dawson Blues from Sherbrook Quebec, who finished with silver last season falling in the national championship game. Offensively they scored 74 points a game led by the Conference player of the year Roxane Makolo who scored 15.2 points a game and shot 39% from the field. The Blues as a team shot 38% and they will rely on Nelly Owusu and Elean Marciszewski to play an important part averaging over 12 points a game to compliment what Makolo can produce.
The PACWEST champs will need to have big contributions from Conference tournament MVP Carmelle M’Bikata who has been a force scoring and rebounding all season long. Their veteran guards, Ashley dela Cruz Yip, Reiko Ohama and Francis Penafiel will also need to shoot well from the outside to give the Blues a balanced attack.
This is not the first time these two schools have met. The last time Capilano opened the CCAA Nationals in 2011 it was also against Dawson in the quarterfinals and they fell to the Quebec champs 81-65. Capilano finished fifth that season. Overall in three appearances in this championship tournament the Blues are 4-6.