Energy gets ’ugly’ to turn the Tide

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The Edmonton Energy got win No. 15 on Saturday night, but there was nothing pretty about it.

Playing in front of a crowd of 400 people at MacEwan Gym in their 101-85 win over the Tacoma Tide, the Energy were sloppy with the ball, unlucky under the bucket and lax on defence. The only thing that may have saved their now 10-game win streak was that the Tide were just a little bit worse.

"That was awful," Energy coach Paul Sir said, before quickly interjecting, "But it’s better to win ugly than to lose ugly. But that was ugly." Steve Sir’s 25 points led the Energy, while Skouson Harker and Lee Scruggs added 20 points apiece. Dontay Harris led Tacoma with 19 points.

"That was by far our weakest performance all year," the coach continued. "We had some good moments, but the guys were not ready." Most of those good moments came in the first half for the Energy. The team burst out of the gate to go up 10-0 on Tacoma, whose bench players adopted the popular U.S. college tradition of standing until the team scored its first points. They took a seat three minutes into the game and watched as Tide guard Justin Murray shot his team back into things, leading an 8-0 charge.

Behind the hot shooting of Steve Sir, who made four three-pointers in the first half, the Energy turned a 35-27 first quarter lead into a 62-49 halftime edge. The game got progressively uglier in the third and fourth quarters. With Tacoma down by as much as 18 midway through the third, the Energy seemed to shoot themselves in the foot, coughing up the ball and blowing layups, rather than stepping on their opponents’ necks.

Paul Sir couldn’t decide which end of the floor was more frustrating to watch. "(At the) halfcourt we weren’t horrible," he joked. "Both ends, we were absolutely terrible." Although he put up a decent 14 points, seven rebounds and nine assists in the win, Energy point guard Will Funn’s struggles were representative of the entire team. Normally a level-headed floor general and a solid finisher, Funn had a stretch in the early stages of the fourth quarter where he had three consecutive turnovers. He also missed a handful of layups he normally makes.

"It was my toughest night (with the Energy)," Funn said. "(Tacoma) did a pretty good job of making sure I couldn’t do my thing in transition, making sure someone else was there to throw me off but I’ll be ready (Sunday)." "It was ugly," added Scruggs, who played with his chin bandaged up after hitting the floor hard in the third quarter. "I think overall this might have been our worst game of the year.

"A win is a win, but we’re trying to win a championship here, so we’ve got to get all of the games like this out of our system." Scruggs left to get stitches after the game.

The two teams will face one another again tonight at 7:15 p.m. It will be the Energy’s final regular-season home game.

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