Size carried the day as the Simon Fraser (SFU) Clan held off a late rally from the UVic men’s basketball team, handing the Vikes a 78-75 loss in the season opener on Halloween night.

Fifth-year Vikes’ guard Cyril Indome led all scorers with 23 points, 12 of which came on four of four three-point shooting in the first quarter.

It wasn’t enough, however, as the Clan out-rebounded the Vikes. The Clan boasts one of the tallest teams in Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), with just one player listed at shorter than 6’3”. Clan guards Kevin Shaw and Matt Kuzminski led the Clan with 18 and 17 points respectively.

Clan forward Eric Burrell gave the Vikes fits down low, as he was too fast for the Vikes’ big men. Burrel had 13 points and 11 boards, regularly making Vikes forwards Nick Adair and Mike Berg look slow. The one Vikes inside presence that had the athleticism to match Burrell was Wendall Thomas, who found himself in foul trouble early in the second half.

After a three-pointer from Shaw gave the Clan a 32-29 lead midway through the second quarter, SFU controlled most of the game, leading by as much as 10 points early in the fourth quarter.

In the fourth, the Vikes came on strong, again lead by Indome, who found his stroke from the foul line, hitting three foul shots and scoring 10 points in the final quarter.

“It was a hard-fought battle, but there’s no sense in feeling sorry for ourselves,” said Indome after the game. “We didn’t do enough to win. We lost rebounding by 15 and we didn’t make our free throws.”

The Vikes were just 15 of 26 from the free throw line. Had they made 19 of those, which would still have meant a sub-par performance, they would have won the game.

The Vikes’ defence, which has led CanWest for the past five years in points allowed, was not up to its usual standards, allowing the Clan to shoot 47 per cent from the field.

“You’re not going to win a lot of games in this conference like that. But I think our shooting almost made up for it,” said Indome. “Vikes basketball isn’t relying on our shooting. We rely on our defence and our rebounding. We had some defensive lapses and we didn’t win the rebounding.”

The Vikes have two weeks to regroup before the Nov. 13-14 weekend, when they host Alberta and Saskatchewan.