SCARBOROUGH, Ont. - They were pushed from the outset, but the Sheridan Bruins men's basketball team (32-3, 17-0 OCAA) handled every moment of adversity and pulled away from Redeemer in the fourth quarter, to pick up a 100-85 victory and advance to the OCAA semi final.

"I thought we played a little nervous and shaky in the beginning, but we've waited two weeks for this, so everyone was excited and once we got that out of our system [and] got our legs under us, we played a really good game," assistant coach Nick Davis said. "Defensively, even though the points don't show it, I thought we were good there. Once we got our offence going in the second half, it worked out well for us."

The Double-Blue led 20-14 after the first quarter and even though Redeemer took the lead briefly in the second frame, the Bruins closed out the half strong and were up 48-42 at intermission. 

Sheridan slowly re-built their advantage to as high as 11 in the third, but Redeemer managed to narrow the gap to six entering the fourth quarter, with the Bruins in front 74-68.

As the final period wore on, the Double-Blue began to assert more control over the game and made the final margin look much more lopsided than the competitive game had been.

Dylan Periana paced the Bruins with 27 points, seven assists and six boards, while Brian Owusu (22 points), Paul Williams (14 points and 14 rebounds), Ostap Choliy (14 points) and Nick Campbell (11 points) were all in double figures for Sheridan. 

The Double-Blue will now square off against another OCAA West Divisional foe in the form of their rivals from Sheridan in the OCAA semi final and Davis says the most important aspect of their preparation began as soon as this game ended.

"The biggest thing is rest and recovery," he said. "Hopefully our guys get enough fluids in them and then just rest, relax and take it as easy as possible until we play again tomorrow night. The recovery time of the body is the most important part. We'll work up a scouting report and all that, but really the big thing is can we get their bodies to recover."