GUELPH, Ont. - Having just watched their female counterparts take care of the Waterloo Warriors a few hours prior, the Guelph Gryphons Men's Basketball team came out and did the exact same thing Saturday afternoon at the GGAC. After the women's team rolled to a 28 point victory, the men went on to down Waterloo 32, 101-69.
With 11 different Gryphons getting on the scoresheet and Malcolm Glanville leading the way with 18 points, Guelph was able to establish a lead early on and never look back en route to a second straight victory.
Right from the opening jump, the Guelph offence came out on fire. Beginning the game on a 13-4 run the Gryphons were able to gain some early breathing room. Getting their advantage as high as 12 points in the quarter, the Gryphons carried a 29-18 lead into the 2nd.
In the 2nd quarter it was simply more of the same from Guelph. Scoring the first ten points of the quarter, the Gryphs lead quickly grew to 21. With the three-balls continuing to fall for Guelph, the advantage kept getting bigger and bigger. To pair with their offence, the Gryphons held Waterloo to just seven points in the quarter while scoring 29 of their own to go up 58-25 at the half.
Carrying their 33 point advantage into the 3rd quarter, the Gryphons were able to maintain that lead for essentially all of the second-half. Keeping pace with the Warriors throughout the final 20-minutes of play, the Gryphons did not allow any kind of run from the visitors that could have given them any type of momentum.
With their lead only ever getting as low as 28 throughout the last two quarters, while getting it as high as 35, the Gryphons had no trouble cruising to their third win of the season.
"The first-half set the tone defensively and then we hit ten threes and got hot which was huge," said Gryphon's head coach Chris O'Rourke. "Then in the second-half it was all about trying to lock in and hold that focus which can be hard when you go up like that. I thought overall, the guys played really well defensively, did what we asked, and I thought the bench was big too. It was a great overall team effort."
Guelph had six players finish the game in double-digits for points, with three of them coming off the bench. Starters Malcolm Glanville, Tommy Yanchus and Rasheed Weekes finished with 18, 16 and 10 points respectively, while Craig Valeriote, Kieran Naus and Viktoras Nausedas had 12, 10 and 10 respectively playing in roles off the bench.
With two straight wins under their belt, the Gryphons will look to finish 2019 strong with two more games to go. Next up for Guelph is a Wednesday night contest in Windsor against the Lancers before returning back to the GGAC to host the Western Mustangs on November 30.
