In an absolute seesaw battle that saw 20 lead changes and eight ties, REDA Red narrowly edged past ROCK Academy for the 64-62 victory in the final game of triple-header action at ACTS Fitness and Athletics Centre in Orangeville.

Where REDA got the slight edge was on the offensive glass, getting second chance points in abundance as ROCK couldn’t keep Chidi Majok, who scored a game-high 21 points, away from the rim and any opposing guards from grabbing long rebounds.

“I think that’s what won us the game, offensive rebounding,” said Jesse Tipping REDA Red head coach. “Chidi was a beast today, I told him he could have his way whenever he wanted. He’s so long and athletic that when he goes and tries to just crush it every single time good things are going to happen, sometimes guys want to finesse it a little bit too much.

“He really played well today.”

Along with the edge on the glass, REDA was able to outscore they’re opponent by knocking down three-point shoots gaining a five-to-zero advantage on shoots from deep.

“We knew they had one pretty good shooter, so we focused in on him tried to not allow him to go off. Just allow guys to step by and our help side to be there

 It was a tightly contested contest right from the opening tip, as the atmosphere in the gym was more intense than it had been all afternoon. It was evident it would be close just from the first eight minutes of the game, which saw five lead changes and two ties.

ROCK began the game with a conscious effort to attack the rim for easy layups and collected fouls on their opponents in the process, while REDA connected on four shots from beyond the arc en route to a 17-15 advantage after one quarter.

The back-and-forth affair continued into the second quarter as another six lead changes and three ties went between the teams. Though ROCK would open up the biggest lead of the game with a brief five point edge it was short lived with REDA responding to go into the half trailing by just a single possession, 36-33.

Really hampering the ROCK was the loss of standout forward Jordan Jensen-Whyte who went down with an ankle injury early in the first. With Jensen-Whyte sidelined the ROCK Academy, already missing the timely scoring of speedy guard Josh Cordero also recovering from an ankle injury, was forced to play the game with just five players.