Rattlers storm back late, snap Surge win streak at four

On a night where they didn’t have their best shooting performance, the Saskatchewan Rattlers showed they had enough grit and determination to pull out the victory.

Nate Pierre-Louis led the way with 23 points, 12 rebounds and six assists as the Rattlers came back after trailing by six at the start of Target Time to take the 87-84 win and snap the Calgary Surge’s four-game winning streak. The win was also Saskatchewan’s first over Calgary since the franchise relocated from Guelph in 2023.

“I was just trying my best to rebound, start the pace,” the star import said. “I feel like when I rebound, it’s a lot less thinking, more reaction. I pride myself on that. Just trying to rebound, start the break, and make really easy decisions.”

“I think that we’re learning each other even more, practice has been good,” he said of his team’s growth early into the season. “We’ve been gelling really well and I think we’re about to play our best basketball. These past two wins show what kind of guys we have; we have high-character guys. We’re some dogs, and we pride ourselves on that.”

Jamir Chaplin added 19 points, Cody John chipped in with 16 points, and Jordan Bowden scored five of his 11 points in Target Time to seal the dramatic comeback. It was the second straight win for the Rattlers, who have bounced back from an 0-4 start to their season.

“This team is resilient,” Rattlers head coach Eric Magdanz said after the game. “It’s an amazing group of guys that just dig in when things get harder. For me, it’s just trying to make sure I’m trying to put them in the right spots at the right time and they just keep battling through. We’ve been building throughout the entire season. Outside of our first game, every game has been close for us. I think we’ve used that as a learning opportunity. You can see that in Target Time now. We don’t get stressed in the moment and we’ve been able to pull out a couple of wins here.”

Things started out well enough for Saskatchewan as they got off to a 15-7 lead at the 4:57 mark before Calgary called a time out. As a quick pep talk from head coach Kaleb Canales, the Surge got off to a run befitting their name and cut the lead to one by the end of the first quarter. They continued their strong play through the entirety of the game, leading from the 3:21 mark of the second quarter until the end of Target Time.

“It’s a long game,” Surge head coach Kaleb Canales said of his team’s rough start. “We talked about pushing the ball in transition. I thought they did a good job of getting offensive rebounds, so we cleaned up some things, but we just have to tip our hats to them. They made some shots down the stretch.”

Greg Brown III put up a team-high 22 points in the loss to go with eight rebounds, while Jameer Nelson Jr. and Sean Miller-Moore had 18 and 17 points, respectively. Osayi Osifo had 10 of his team’s 13 points off the bench and also finished with seven rebounds.

The Surge were without a pair of key contributors in Khyri Thomas and Stefan Jankovic due to injury. As a result, the team was shorthanded and only seven players played at least five minutes in the game.

“They’re two really big pieces to our team, so they really could’ve helped us, but it’s next man up,” Brown said of his fallen teammates. “Next man has the opportunity to go seize it. But with them out of the lineup, we really needed to go get it.”

The game played as a battle of opposing strategies, as Magdanz’s Rattlers team took over 40 three-pointers throughout the contest, while Canales’ Surge squad tried to use their size and athleticism to run the floor and score most of their points in the paint. For the majority of the contest, it looked like things would turn out in the home team’s favour as the Surge racked up a total of 52 points-in-the-paint while the road squad shot just 5-of-36 from the three-point line as they headed into Target Time. But the Rattlers come up big when it mattered most.

“I feel like they didn’t do anything different; it was on us,” Brown lamented. “We have to come with the same fire that we normally do coming into games. My being on the boards a bit, me being a rim protector, I could have done a better job tonight. They have some really good guards – I know Nate Pierre-Louis personally – but we just have to be better.”

The loss dropped the Surge to 1-1 during their five-game homestand, while the Rattlers won back-to-back road games for the first time since July 11 & 13 of the 2023 season