Carleton Sports Information (Photo by Valerie Wutti)
Waterloo, Ont. - The Carleton Ravens men's basketball team flexed their depth on Saturday night beating the Laurier Golden Hawks 92-80.
Coming off a win over the uOttawa Gee-Gees Friday, the Golden Hawks came out firing shooting 61% in the first quarter while the two teams exchanged 54 points. Against a battle-tested Golden Hawks team the Ravens quickly settled into a defensive rhythm in the second quarter settling down the pace and not letting get the Golden Hawks comfortable.
Grant Shephard (Kelowna, B.C.) took over inside grabbing five rebounds and scoring five points in the second frame while Marjok Okada (Calgary, Alta.) came off the bench with five points and a steal to help steady the Ravens.
Taye Donald and Benhur Gebrekidan spurred the Golden Hawks along throughout the evening, exchanging impressive quarters of play while combining to score 29 points. But it was Ethan Passley who gave the Ravens fits. Playing 38 minutes, Passley scored 23 points while collecting five rebounds and five assists.
Passley had two of his assists in the third quarter as Laurier tightened up defensively holding Carleton to 2-for-7 from deep and outscoring the Ravens 22-21.
Carleton responded to everything Laurier could throw at them in the fourth shooting an impressive 55.6% from downtown including a pair of clutch threes from Connor Vreeken that helped to ice the Laurier comeback. In his second game back from injury the Kingston, Ont. guard put up another solid performance scoring 17 points on 6-for-9 shooting while fellow guard Wazir Latiff led all Ravens with 22 points.
The Ravens now return home for a weekend set with visitors Ontario Tech coming on Friday and Guelph visiting on Saturday.
