Jonas Emilsson
www.KramMag.com

The Western Canada Redmen put together a lights-out long-range shooting performance and another relentless ball-pressure game to defeat the Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs 88-79 to stamp their ticket into the city championship game on Saturday night.

The Redmen will face the Bishop Grandin Ghosts, who defeated the Notre Dame Pride 84-80 in their semi-final match.

Redmen guard Eli Prochnau hit seven shots from beyond the arc on way to a game high 32-point performance while Nebojsa Kuljic chipped in with 18 points.

Brad Clark led the Bulldogs with 24 points, including 19 points in the first half and Alex Regan chipped in with 23 points.

Prochnau easily saved one of his best games of the season for the second biggest game of the season.

The dynamic guard provided a huge spark for the Redmen on both sides of the court, and was easily the game’s difference maker.

“Eli is a difference maker,” said Redmen’s head coach Steve Wiebe. “Not just with his shot, which is what he’s known for, but his leadership on the defensive end. He got a number of steals coming from the off-side against those big guys, he finished tough and he played a fantastic game. He’s an absolute workhorse for us.”

The win puts the Redmen in the championship game
for a second consecutive year, and at the same time it ended an impressive run of three straight finals appearances by the Bulldogs.

“We’ve got business on Saturday, so I told the guys they have five minutes to celebrate and then it’s time to go back to work,” said Wiebe.

The Redmen deployed an identical ball-pressure game plan that gave the Bulldog’s so much trouble just two weeks ago when the two teams faced off.

“Exact same game plan to be honest,” said Wiebe. “I thought we might see a little of their press tonight so we prepared a little bit for that but we didn’t see it at all. But we did exactly the same thing as the last time we played them. The recipe against them is to keep it out of the post.”

The difference this time around however was the Bulldogs’ ability to keep battling their way back in the game despite appearing out of it on several occasions.

“Our kids came to play and I’m glad that we came and battled,” said Bulldogs’ head coach Mike Fullerton. With two minutes left we cut it to a two-point game, but again, our weakness all year long was our inability to deal with pressure. I’m really proud of our guys, we really battled tonight. That’s a pretty darn good team over there.”

Their determination almost paid off midway through the final quarter when they erased a 13-point deficit and narrowed it down to just a two-point game with four minutes to play in the game, thanks in large part to the hot shooting of Alex Regan, who scored 18 points in the second half.

But six straight points by Kuljic, three of which came on a tough and-one bucket and then three more on a ridiculous fade-away three pointer, finally put the game away for good.

The final against the Ghosts will be a repeat of the Calgary Basketball Classic final, where the Redmen bullied their way to a 96-50 victory in the same gym where the two teams will be battling it out in the final game of the season.

Check back with KramMag.com on Saturday night for complete coverage of the basketball finals.