Veinot leads Tigers to another title
Siblings earn MVP awards as Acadia, Dalhousie take banners
There’s no quit in the Veinot clan.
Just hours after watching his twin sister Jayda guide the Acadia Axewomen to a comefrom-behind victory in the Atlantic University Sport (AUS) women’s basketball championship, Keevan Veinot did the same for the Dalhousie Tigers in the men’s final March 20 at Scotiabank Centre in Halifax.
Like the Axewomen, Dal faced a 14-point deficit to the UPEI Panthers at halftime. But the experienced Tigers roared back in the second half, outscoring the younger Panthers 49-29 in an 84-78 victory. It’s the program’s third consecutive Atlantic university banner and fifth in six years.
Veinot, a Port Williams native, said he was standing near the Acadia bench, “yelling like an idiot” while watching his sister’s game.
“In my second year, Jayda won the AUS banner and after the game I hugged her and she told me, ‘You have to go win.’ And I did,” recalled Veinot, the
AUS championship MVP. “We had the exact same conversation today and now the same outcome.
“At no point, despite being down by 14, did anyone on our team think we were going to lose. Here we are, three titles in a row.”
While the No. 1-ranked Tigers were able to contain Elijah Miller, the Panthers’ dynamic sophomore guard who came into the final having scored a combined 71 points in UPEI’s quarter-final and semifinal wins, Scotsburn forward Glen Cox picked up the slack and had 26 points in the first half alone. Cox finished with a game-high 32.
The third-seeded Panthers fired at a 67 per cent clip from the field in the first half.
For the second straight game, the Tigers had dug themselves a hole. In the March 19 semifinal win over the Memorial Sea-Hawks, Dal trailed by 10 heading into the fourth quarter and by seven with under two minutes to play before sparking a wild comeback and escaping with an 87-85 win.
Shamar Burrows, selected as the championship’s player of the game, said a defensive switch for the second half changed the momentum in his team's favour.
“At halftime, we knew we only had 20 minutes left in our season,” said Burrows, a fourthyear guard from the Bahamas. “Our goal this season was to be No. 1 in the conference, win the AUS and win a national championship. If we wanted to achieve our second goal, we had to come out in the second half really tough and hard to play against.
“We tried different defensive schemes and our rotation wasn’t there in the first half. We had to change the scheme again so we went into more of a man zone. That was the difference maker.
“Just coming back from being down (Saturday) night and down tonight shows that the Dal Tigers have grit and we fight back. But we can’t be digging ourselves a hole every time. We have to fight from the beginning.”
Burrows and Veinot each finished with 19 points. Burrows had 13 rebounds and Veinot dished out nine assists.
Alex Carson, playing in his final AUS game, collected 17 points for Dal, which advances to the U Sports Final 8 championship, April 1-3 in Edmonton.