DAVID LARKINS, Wesmen Athletics

The Winnipeg Wesmen are back to .500 and back outside the less-favourable playoff picture after a bounce-back win Saturday night.

Eric Racine had career-highs with 21 points and four three-pointers and the Wesmen men's basketball team dropped the Saskatchewan Huskies 86-78 in a Canada West conference game at the Duckworth Centre.

The result moved the Wesmen to 6-6 on the season with four games to play. It also got them into ninth place overall in the conference, which is of note because the 10- through 17-seeded teams have to play an extra game at the conference playoff tournament under the new playoff structure for this season. 

Racine, a third-year transfer guard from St. Cloud (Minn.) Technical and Community College, had his brightest night as a Wesmen yet, hitting on 4 of 7 three-pointers and 8 of 14 from the field. He scored 10 of his team-high total in the third quarter and accounted for all but two of the team's field goals in the frame. 

While the Huskies dominated the first half in a win on Friday, the Wesmen flipped the script Saturday and tore out to an early lead thanks to a 15-2 run that gave them a 23-6 lead late in the first quarter. 

They would extend that advantage to 47-26 at halftime and a Racine three with 6:08 to go in the third quarter pushed it to 55-35, their largest lead of the night. 

The Huskies, who entered the night having won six in a row, pushed back almost immediately. Saskatchewan went on a 12-0 run, holding the Wesmen without a point for the next 3:26 that got the deficit down to eight. 

The Wesmen managed to bump the lead back to double digits at 61-50 heading into the fourth quarter, but another Saskatchewan run was on the way. 

Winnipeg went scoreless over the first 2:41 of the fourth quarter as the Huskies trimmed their lead to three before a Shawn Maranan trip with 7:21 to go stopped the bleeding. That set Winnipeg off on a 9-2 run over the next minute and change and ultimately provided the Wesmen enough breathing room to close the game out. 

Don Dayrit finished with 20 for the Wesmen, who will take a weekend off before hosting Regina Feb. 11-12. Spas Nikolov added 15 points and matched a season-high with 14 rebounds, and Maranan also finished with 15.

Donald Stewart provided big effort off the bench. The redshirt freshman logged 23 minutes and had eight points, five rebounds and four blocks, all career-highs. 

The Huskies (8-4) got 23 points from Alexander Dewar, 16 from Marquavian Stevens, 14 from Emmanuel Akintunde and 10 from Nervens Demosthene.

—#REPTHEW—