Antigonish, NS – The X-Men basketball team took to the court for their first pre-season exhibition game Friday night at Dr. J. H. Gillis high school and played a close 88-81 game against the Bishop's gaiters, coming out on the losing end.
Veteran X-Men head coach Steve Konchalski noted, "There definitely were some bright spots in the game with two freshmen leading us in scoring - Avan Nava with 20 points and Dondre Reddick with 18."
"Azaro Roker picked up where he left off last year recording a double-double with 10 points and 12 rebounds, however, we have to continue to work on the defensive end of the court as we did not meet our goals in that area."
The X-Men were outscored by the Gaiters 23-18 in the first quarter, but came back to a balanced second quarter to pull to within three points at halftime, trailing 40-37.
The Gaiters held a 66-57 advantage after three quarters and the X-Men came back to outhustle the visitors by a 24-22 margin in the final quarter but fell short in the final 88-81 tally.
Avan Nava scored a game-high 20 points for the X-Men and Dondre Reddick scored 18 off the bench and had a pair of steals. Justin Andrew netted 14 points for X and had six assists and two steals. Azaro Roker scored 10 and hauled in 12 rebounds.
Yassin Naji was the top scorer for the Gaiters with 20 points and also had nine rebounds. Nervens Demosthene contributed 17 points and nine rebounds.
The X-Men will be back in exhibition action next weekend, October 10-12 when they travel to Calgary for the Calgary Dinos Invitational tournament. They will play games against UBC, Calgary and Mount Royal.
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