The Winnipeg Wesmen sent one Cinderella home on Thursday night.

Donald Stewart led a dominant Wesmen performance on the glass and the Wesmen men's basketball team cruised to a 96-69 win over the Fraser Valley Cascades in a Canada West quarter-final at the Investors Group Athletic Centre. 

Stewart had 25 points and a career-high 17 rebounds to lead the No. 3-seed Wesmen in taking down the 11-seed Cascades, who had advanced to Day 2 thanks to their upset of Regina on Wednesday.

Against the Wesmen, however, the Cascades looked outmatched especially in the interior where Winnipeg worked a 54-27 advantage in rebounding, including 21-11 on the offensive glass. Stewart had eight of those O-boards.

Alberto Gordo added 16 points and six rebounds and Malachi Alexander added 12 points.

The Wesmen prevailed despite getting minimal point production from their conference all-stars: Shawn Maranan had eight points, but dished out eight assists, and Mikhail Mikhailov also scored eight, but grabbed 10 rebounds. 
 
Leading 24-21 after a quarter, the Wesmen elevated to another gear, outscoring UFV 23-13 in the second quarter, using a 9-0 run to start the period to build a 12-point lead. After the Cascades closed the gap to six points, the Wesmen closed the half on an 11-4 run to take 47-34 lead into the break.

Winnipeg outscored UFV 49-35 in the second half. They held the Cascades to 38.9 per cent from the field and UFV made only 6 of 22 from three.

Guard Dylan Kinley, who averaged 18.6 points per game and was top-20 in the country in scoring this year, was held to 2-for-18 shooting and seven points. 

"Guys came in and they were ready to play," head coach Mike Raimbault said. "We were really just talking about being back defensively. We know that they're really good in transition, they're really good at dribbling it downhill, getting in the paint and causing problems. So we were just trying to make sure we had pressure on the ball and we were supporting everyone who was defending on ball, trying to be as disruptive as we could be."

Ismael Hernandez and Dario Lopez both scored 11 points to lead the Cascades.