Saturday night in Prince George, the UNBC Timberwolves (2-3) dropped a back-and-forth decision to the visiting Trinity Western Spartans by the narrowest of margins. Jack Vandenberg hit a buzzer-beating three – his fifth of the night - to help guide the Spartans to their second win of the season, earning them a split with UNBC.
Timberwolves forward Evgeny Baukin, who entered the weekend as the top scorer in Canada, poured in 30 points for a third time in five games. The reigning Canada West Player of the Week also grabbed 14 rebounds to lead all players on Saturday.
It was a scrappy first quarter which resulted in a 16-12 lead for Trinity Western after one. Shankar and Sipma combined for 11. For UNBC it was Baukin who led the way with six while Miller Davies, Isaiah Bias and Haukur Davidsson all added buckets.

Credit to the Spartans who defended the three much better in the first half on Saturday, holding UNBC to a zero-for-three clip in the first, and zero-for-seven in the half.

On the flip side, Trinity had seven first-half threes – four of which came in the second quarter. Shankar had three while Vandenberg (2), Sipma (1) and Pearse (1) supplied the others. Despite the lopsided edge from Downtown, the Spartans only led 33-31 at half.

The second quarter highlight for UNBC was the layup  'And 1' finish from Sunga who had five points of his seven first-half points in the second quarter.

At half Baukin led the way for the TWolves with 13 and his seven boards were also a team-high. For Trinity Western Shankar's nine points and five rebounds led the way.

Trinity Western struck three more times from deep in the third which ultimately led to a 19-13 edge and a 52-44 lead. Vandenberg, Shankar and Logan Stewart connected on those threes while Platz added a pair of layups and Caleb Gremaud supplied a dunk.

At the other end, Baukin remained a man on a mission for UNBC as he tacked on nine more and had a game-high 22 through three quarters. He also had 10 rebounds to lead all players.

The encouragement thing for the Timberwolves was, despite the huge discrepancy in threes, the Trinity lead was still just single digits.

A layup from Tyus Devries in the opening minute of the fourth moved Trinity Western up by 10 as the shooting woes from deep continued for UNBC.

The UNBC pushback began shortly thereafter as Miller Davies hit a free-throw, and Bias followed with a layup. Tony Kibonge then found pay dirt from deep, pushing the Spartans lead to just four. Then, the NSC crowd went nuclear as Sunga found Baukin for an alley-oop. All of a sudden the gap was two.

A Baukin layup and threes followed from Kibonge and Sunga, and a 10-point gap was now a six-point UNBC lead!

Vandenberg and Sipma swiped momentum back with consecutive threes for Trinity, and the score was tied 60-60 with a minute left.

Platz hit two free-throws putting Trinity back up by two, but Baukin answered with a put-back to make it 62-62.

Then, with time winding down, Baukin drove to the hoop, and somehow maintained his balance in the air, and converted on a challenging layup in traffic to give UNBC the lead again with 3.9 seconds left!

It all came down to one final play, and after a successful inbound, Jack Vandenberg took a pass at the corner, turn around and heaved up his 12^th three of the night. It connected, silencing the NSC crowd, and giving the Spartans a massive win and a split of the weekend up North.

For UNBC a heart-breaking conclusion, but still another encouraging outing as they now get set for their first road games of the season beginning Friday at UBCO.