ANCASTER, Ont. - The St. Clair men's basketball team kept themselves in the OCAA's west region playoff race with a thrilling 89-88 road victory over Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ont., Saturday afternoon.

Both teams shot well in the opening quarter and were even heading to the second quarter at 25-25 when the Saints put on a show scoring 29 points to take a 54-45 into halftime. Rookie swingman Lance Drummonds (Hamilton, Ont.) was a force getting his hand on every loose ball and rebound on his way to 28 first half points including a second quarter dunk.

Redeemer, however, mounted a comeback cutting into the deficit by the end of the third quarter and eventually overtook St. Clair 81-75 midway through the fourth quarter. Drummonds came up big again scoring seven straight points allowing the Saints to regain the lead.

Redeemer did not go quietly in front of their raucous home crowd and with 3.9 seconds left hit a desperation triple to tie the game at 88-88. On the ensuing inbounds play St. Clair hit fifth-year forward Pat Donnelly (Oakville, Ont.) who was fouled on his tip-in attempt. Donnelly calmly hit the first free throw and cleverly missed his second attempt on purpose to collect the rebound in front of a surprised Redeemer front line.

Drummonds finished his monster night with 40 points adding 10 rebounds for the double-double.  In the process he put himself in the rare company of players who have reached the 40-point plateau for St. Clair. Drummonds made 14-of-19 from the free throw line and eight of his 10 rebounds were on the offensive glass. Fourth-year point guard Charles Baskin (Detroit, Mich.) was the only other Saint in double figures scoring 13 points.

Although out-shot in the game, St. Clair scored 25 points off 13 Redeemer turnovers had 31 second-chance points. Redeemer's Rayvon Higdon (Rochester, N.Y.) scored 24 points in the loss.

Source: St. Clair College