Sunday, February 22, 2009

CIS Corner: Ravens shut door minus Doornekamp; historic hockey win

Notes on our athletes/teams from The 613...

MEN'S HOOPS
  • Ravens: There's been some questions raised over at cisblog.ca over the nature of the foot injury which kept Aaron Doornekamp out of Carleton's 76-69 win on Saturday (full disclosure: Yours truly was at work, and the cable carrier there isn't Rogers, so it was SOL for following a very good game).

    The upshot is the Ravens' potential next two games, the OUA East semi-final and final, are meaningful to them, but maybe more meaningful for eventual West Division runner-up. Should Ottawa end up winning the East, that berth that Brock took advantage goes poof and it's hard to see the CIS Final 8 wild-card berth going to an OUA team when there are great arguments out there for Cape Breton or Trinity Western.

    Saturday, Ottawa made a great third-quarter run that might dredge up the same rubric from last season about Carleton's depth. (Note: When we say this, it means people will ask, not that it is necessarily the case.)
  • Gee-Gees: Chances are it will be a Toronto-Ottawa semi-final next weekend. Josh Gibson-Bascombe had 19 points and nine rebounds and the one solace for Ottawa is they kept within seven despite Josh Wright shooting just 5-for-18.
WOMEN'S HOOPS: Forbes Sparks Ottawa
  • Gee-Gees: At first glance, point guard Allison Forbes (12 points, six assists, five rebounds) was the X factor in Ottawa's 56-49 OUA East semi-final win over Carleton.

    Forbes had a good game in Ottawa's loss in the Capital Hoops Classic, before encountering foul trouble. Hannah Sunley-Paisley also had a productive afternoon (12 rebounds, eight points), as Ottawa will face Toronto in the OUA East championship game on Wednesday.

    The Ravens' talisman, Tanya Perry, rolled her ankle 3:23 into the third quarter and never returned to the game. That was a kick in the pants for the Ravens.

    A tip of the cap is due to Andy Sparks and his coaching staff for turning around Ottawa quickly after late season's 3-19 nightmare. They're only just getting started, one would hope.

    Ottawa lost both regular-season games to Toronto, but the second game was by just six points. They're close, but would probably need an outlier performance (Kelly Weir, maybe?) to pull the upset and go to the Final 8, which is March 6-8 in Regina.
  • Ravens: It's unclear what was Carleton's undoing; perhaps they overachieved and suffered a correction down the stretch.

    The upshot is Taffe Charles' team is losing its top two players, Ines Jelic in the post and Perry at guard (along with Julie Hoo, a very handy reserve), but they have a good system and the program's reputation has been enhanced. The bottom line, from a fan's point of view, is the team is in a much better place than it was 24 months ago. There seems to be more interest in the women's teams, when there wasn't not so long ago.
  • It should have covered off earlier, but what would have been the best way to handle having a women's playoff game and men's regular-season game on the same day?

    A few commenters here weren't too happy with the three-hour gap between games, considering it a missed opportunity to promote.

    The U of O has a real time crunch with its facilities. There is also the matter of the OUA charges different admission prices for playoff games vis-à-vis the regular season, but some people would call the forest-for-the-trees stuff.

    Windsor had the same situation. For point of comparison, Windsor's men team played at 1 p.m., with the women's semi-final (each played Laurier) tipping off at 4 p.m., enough time to clear the gym, but not so much that it inconvenienced anyone who wanted to watch both games.

    Again, though, this really comes back to demand exceeding supply when it comes to gym time at Ottawa.
  • Eastern Ontario stands to have some representation at the CIS Final 8 women's championship regardless of the Ottawa-Toronto result.

    Anneka Bakker, the Ashbury alumna, had a team-high 17 points Sunday to help the Alberta Pandas beat Saskatchewan in the decider of their division final and advance to the Canada West Final Four.

    Napanee's own Matteke Hutzler and her Simon Fraser Clan teammates host the tournament. Hutzler chipped in 12 points Saturday in SFU's series-clinching win over UBC.
  • Ottawa native Bess Lennox, who already set the OUA single-season rebounding record, had another 13 boards in Western's playoff win over McMaster on Saturday. A 47% free-throw shooter, she also ended up going 7-of-7 at the free-throw line.
HOCKEY
  • Ravens: More great headlines that cannot be written — "Self realization for Carleton."

    Andrew Self, the member of the Belleville Bulls' Memorial Cup team last season, scored the game-winners in each of Carleton's victories in their playoff series win over Concordia, including a 3-2 decision today. That was what they got him for, no doubt about it.

    It would be remiss, considering all the years that Carleton skipper Fred Parker coached in the CJHL, not to point out that Derek Wells, formerly of the Smith Falls Bears, provided great secondary scoring in series. He had two goals, which matched his output from 20 regular-season games.

    Carleton will face No. 5 Trois-Rivières in the East semi-final, likely starting Wednesday at Le Colisée, where they were waxed 10-1 two weeks ago. They found a way to steal a win in Concordia's barn.
  • Gee-Gees: Ottawa can hold its heads up for hanging in with McGill for three games, although going down 2-1 in the decisive Game 3 today must hurt.

    Riley Whitlock was very good in the last two games for Ottawa, stopping 84 shots. Ottawa stands to lose three forwards — captain Martin Herard, centres Dan McDonald and Kevin Glode — along with five-year goalie Martin Bricault — off this season's team.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Carleton's Jelic got into foul trouble real early and sat for some time. Perry twisted her ankle and was done for the day. I think that happened early in the fourth.

The logjam at Ottawa's gym only points out again how the rapid expansion in student population has caused Ottawa to have to play catch up with facilities. Nowhere more evident than in athletic facilities.
They need more gym space, another playing field ( a field house with a roof on it, and 4000 seats is on their wish list) and even more ice.
The old gym on the Lees ave campus that Ottawa recently required from Algonquin is being used for intra murals. However the buildings on Lees have been deemed not worth doing extensive renovations on and will be used only for swing space until 2012. After that who knows what they will do with them ? Maybe demolish them?
Ottawa needs to either break through the NIMBY-ism that has held up putting another sport complex in the Nicholas-Mann Gateway Precinct, or decide to put one up on the Lees Avenue property, which is almost exactly half the acreage of all of Lansdowne Park.
The Nicholas-Mann question was supposed to go before a committee of City Council last November, but there is still no sign of it on the Planning Committees agenda.

OttawaFan

sager said...

Hi y'all,

Rob Pettapiece has provided us with final men's and women's RPI.

Carleton's men are first, Ottawa third (closer to 2nd than 4th) and Queen's is 33rd. I feel some regret for not devoting more time to Queen's in the second half of this season, when they were struggling.

Ottawa is 17th, Carleton 23rd and Queen's 33rd on the women's side.

MEN (not counting the Regina-Brandon playoff game on Sunday)
1. Carleton (29-2), .601
2. UBC (28-2), .596
3. Ottawa (29-4), .586
4. Western (22-6), .567
5. Concordia (17-4), .565
6. Calgary (23-6), .555
7. Windsor (19-8), .553
8. Victoria (20-9), .552
9. StFX (24-6), .546
10. Trinity Western (20-9), .545
10. Cape Breton (18-5), .545

12. Toronto (18-10), .538
13. Simon Fraser (15-11), .533
14. McMaster (16-10), .531
15. Dalhousie (19-10), .517
16. Brandon (17-10), .511
17. Ryerson (14-13), .509
17. Alberta (17-15), .509
19. McGill (15-14), .507
20. Waterloo (15-14), .506

21. Brock (12-14), .501
22. Regina (15-13), .499
23. Saint Mary's (16-12), .496
24. UQAM (12-13), .494
25. Guelph (12-14), .491
26. UPEI (12-14), .487
27. Laval (13-14), .486
28. UFV (8-18), .483
29. Saskatchewan (12-18), .479
30. Bishop's (8-19), .478
30. Laurier (11-19), .478

32. Lakehead (10-20), .475
33. Queen's (10-19), .469
34. York (8-20), .458
35. Acadia (7-19), .455
36. Lethbridge (6-22), .444
37. Thompson Rivers (3-21), .439
38. Winnipeg (7-23), .437
39. Manitoba (5-19), .431
40. UNB (4-23), .430
41. Laurentian (5-21), .428
42. Memorial (4-22), .426
43. RMC (0-30), .399

WOMEN (through all games on Sunday)
1. Simon Fraser (29-1), .599
2. Windsor (30-2), .585
3. Alberta (32-7), .575
4. Saskatchewan (23-7), .567
5. UQAM (15-7), .549
6. Regina (27-8), .548
7. Western (22-7), .547
8. Toronto (23-9), .543
9. Victoria (19-9), .541
10. StFX (16-7), .540

11. Dalhousie (19-7), .537
12. Laval (15-9), .535
12. Cape Breton (20-8), .535
14. Memorial (18-8), .533
15. Bishop's (13-9), .531
15. Winnipeg (23-13), .531
17. Ottawa (18-8), .530
18. UBC (18-14), .529
19. McMaster (20-13), .520
20. Lakehead (15-13), .512

21. Calgary (16-17), .509
22. Trinity Western (13-15), .506
23. Carleton (18-16), .500
24. Laurier (14-14), .494
25. Laurentian (13-15), .490
26. Ryerson (13-17), .480
27. Acadia (9-15), .471
28. Concordia (8-19), .466
29. McGill (6-18), .461
30. Lethbridge (6-18), .460
30. Guelph (10-20), .460

32. Brock (9-19), .457
33. Manitoba (10-22), .456
34. Waterloo (9-18), .451
35. Queen's (9-21), .448
36. UFV (5-24), .443
37. UPEI (5-20), .440
37. UNB (9-23), .440
39. York (7-23), .438
40. Thompson Rivers (4-22), .434
41. Brandon (3-25), .425
42. Saint Mary's (2-22), .418
43. RMC (1-25), .397

Rob Pettapiece said...

The Carleton men should be 30-1, of course. (Something funny happened to that Ottawa score on its way into the RPI calculation....)