This past weekend saw the St. Thomas University Tommies host their annual Ken Gould Invitational tournament, marking the 9th year it has existed.
This year’s edition had our women’s team finish in second place with a 2-1 record, and the men’s team winning their side of the tournament with an undefeated record of 3-0.
A strong field of competition had the men’s and women’s teams from Champlain Lennoxville and Mount Allison University, as well as the women’s team from Mount Saint Vincent University and UNBSJ’s men’s team in town for the tournament.
Friday night saw both teams get victories over the Champlain Lennoxville Cougars to open the tournament.
“I thought we moved the ball well and handled ourselves very well, especially with the nervousness of the first night of the Ken Gould,” said women’s head coach Fred Connors.
Day two of the tournament had both teams face a bit of adversity. The first matchup had the Tommies facing last year’s tournament and ACAA champions, the MSVU Mystics. The Tommies would end up dropping the game by 20 points, leaving Connors disappointed overall. The day ended with the game of the tournament, between the Tommies and the MTA Mounties. The game was tied at halftime, and STU found themselves trailing by two heading into the final quarter. Insert first-year Tommie Ian Watters, who took over the fourth quarter, scoring 7 of his 16 points in the final quarter, including the buzzer beating shot, where he stepped through a double team and banked home the winner.
“I was trying to decide which one of two plays we were going to run from the sideline,” said men’s head coach John Hickey. “As far as Ian goes, he's been in big games before and he's made big shots in big games before, so I'm comfortable living with his read in those situations. That said, next time, I'd prefer he didn't dribble to the sideline and get trapped.”
Both teams closed out the tournament with wins. The women were 60-35 winners and the men defeated the UNBSJ Seawolves 79-55.
“We finally pieced all the things together that we had talked about throughout the weekend,” said Connors about how his team finished the tournament. “I am really proud of how they responded after Abby [Draper] went down with her injury. That can rock any team and they responded well.”
Despite the tournament victory, Hickey knows his team still has plenty of room to grow.
“I thought that we did a good job of handling some adversity, and I thought we did a pretty good job of supporting our teammates. We're learning to play the game the right way, so that will take time, but everyone has been totally committed, so we'll definitely continue to get better. But, plain and simple, we need to be more efficient in our stuff offensively and we need to get better defensively. We have a ton of work to do yet.
The Tommies will continue their preseason schedule with a pair of games each in Maine before they open the regular season on November 2nd against the Mounties.