As veteran post players, Dennis Stark and Jesse Smith are going to have to come up big.
The two members of the UNBC Northern Timberwolves will be key figures in the quest of the local men's basketball team to win a second consecutive national championship this week in Oshawa, Ont. All season, the Timberwolves have been smallish in the paint and that's something opposing teams have tried to exploit. The Lethbridge College Kodiaks -- UNBC's first opponent at the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association championship tournament -- will likely be no different.
The Kodiaks have on their roster six-foot-seven forward Dominyc Coward, who averaged 12.85 rebounds per game and 18 points per game during the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference regular season. Coward could cause some problems for the T-wolves, unless the six-foot-four Stark and/or six-foot-five Smith can invade his airspace.
"I think hard work beats size almost any day so that's all we've got to keep in mind," said Stark, a second-team all-star in the B.C. Colleges Athletic Association this season. "At practice, coach [Todd Jordan] has told us that our first match-up has probably the best offensive/defensive rebounder in the country so we're aware of that and there's no excuse for not putting a body on him, as well as the other four guys on the court. We all have to box out and rebound as a team. Being undersized, we don't have a clear-cut, definitive rebounder so we've all got to do it."
On Wednesday, see The Citizen and pgcitizen.ca for more.
