VANCOUVER — The Winnipeg Wesmen used a key fourth-quarter run to fend off the Mount Royal Cougars and advance in the Canada West playoffs.

The Wesmen men's basketball team outscored the Cougars 15-3 over the final 2:52 and hung on for an 86-74 win in a play-in game at UBC's War Memorial Gymnasium. 

The Wesmen will now advance to a quarter-final game against the host Thunderbirds Saturday (9:30 p.m. CT, Canada West TV).

It was the third time this season the Wesmen have beaten the Cougars, having scored two wins in Calgary in Week 2 of the conference season. And Ryan Luke continued his strong play against the Cougars, dropping 20 points — eight in the fourth quarter — on 8-for-10 shooting. It was Luke's second-highest scoring output of the season only behind the 22 he put on the Cougars in the Nov. 17 win. In three games against MRU, Luke averaged 18.3 points and shot 75 per cent from the field. 

Shawn Maranan led the Wesmen with 25 points, eight assists and three steals. Lamar Everd scored 11 points and Donald Stewart had 10 points and seven rebounds. 

The Cougars trailed by as many as 10 in the second quarter and went into halftime down 44-36. But a 22-17 third quarter allowed them to briefly take a 58-57 lead with just over a minute remaining in the period. But Winnipeg got back-to-back buckets from Luke in the final 50 seconds and the Wesmen extended their advantage back to three heading into the fourth.

Winnipeg then held MRU without a field goal for the first four minutes of the fourth quarter and pushed its lead to 66-58 as part of a 9-0 run. The Cougars had one last surge left, putting together a 13-3 stretch that leveled the game at 71 with just under three to go. That's when Winnipeg put the game away holding the Cougars without a point for two minutes. MRU went 0-for-4 with a turnover in five critical possessions in that time frame. 

"Tip of our hat to the way they played and how they were prepared," Winnipeg head coach Mike Raimbault said. "I thought we did a good job of maintaining our composure when the game got close, executed, and made a couple of big shots late to give us some breathing room."

The Wesmen struggled shooting the ball in the first quarter going 4-for-15 from the field and 0-for-6 from three as the Cougars took a 20-17 advantage. But the Wesmen shot 54 per cent from the field the rest of the way, including 8 of 17 from three. 

Keivonte Watts, the conference's third-leading scorer, paced the Cougars with 22 points but was held to 1-for-11 from three-point range and 1-for-10 in the final quarter. Dray Walberger scored 15 off the bench. 

—With files from UBC Athletics