Fredericton, NB- The St. Thomas University Tommies erupted for a 40 point first quarter on route to a 78-62 victory over the Crandall University Chargers Sunday night at the Lady Beaverbrook Gymnasium.
"Obviously the first quarter is what propelled us," said Tommies head coach John Hickey of his team's start to the game. "We shot it well and played the game from the inside out and the ball went down for us."
Second year Tommies Geoffrey Lavoie led the way for the Tommies with 29 points on the evening, with 18 of them coming in the opening quarter. Devin Glenn led the Chargers with 17 points in the loss.
Following the opening quarter of 40 points, the Tommies could only muster 7 in the second quarter to take a halftime lead of 47-21.
The Chargers began mounting their comeback in the third quarter, as they outscored the Tommies 26-13, to make it a 60-47 Tommies lead heading into the final quarter.
"I thought our guys did a real good job of playing to win in the second half, because it is really easy to play not to lose," said Hickey of his team playing with the early lead. "We talked about trying to stay aggressive and I thought once we relaxed a little bit we did a really good job of that."
The Tommies would close the game out by outscoring the Chargers 18-15 to cement the victory, moving the team to 2-0 on the season, while the Chargers drop to 3-1.
Next action for both teams will come on Saturday, November 16th when both teams will be in Halifax. The Chargers have a 3:00pm tipoff with the UKC Blue Devils and the Tommies have a date with the MSVU Mystics at 6:00pm.