After finishing the spring preseason basketball tournament as champions, the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity immediately set their sights on the grand prize; winning the Greek League Championships. On Monday night, the glory was all theirs.
Pike overpowered Sigma Alpha Epsilon late in the second half to come away with a 57-36 victory at the Wellness Center basketball courts. This is the second matchup between these two fraternities, the first having been during the preseason where Pike came away with an eight-point victory.
In this contest, SAE kept it close early, scoring the first points of the game and showing some impressive rebounding.
“The game plan heading into this game was to make sure everybody played really well defensively,” said EJ Silver, the starting shooting guard for SAE.
Their game plan was working well for them in the first half, as they were only trailing by three with one minute left before halftime before Pike ended the half on a 6-0 run off of two straight three point shots to end the half leading SAE 26-17.
After a quick halftime break however, Pike came out strong defensively and started to put this game away with just over ten minutes left in the game, when they held a 15 point lead over SAE.
Fans and members from both fraternities were out in full force, practically occupying the entire wall where the team benches were occupied. Their cheers and compliments for their teammates came early and often for both squads, but as the game wore on the excitement turned into frustration for the SAE faithful.
Ultimately dooming SAE were the untimely turnovers that came in the second half, as Pike was hitting their shots whenever they held the ball. That, plus the ferocious Pike defense and a few questionable calls allowed Pike to come away with the victory.
“They were just more organized defensively, more set up,” said Silver.
Still, overall the members of SAE are proud of the work they accomplished as a whole.
“We still had a good season,” said Silver. “We just had an off night.”
Ernesto Suarez may be contacted at esuarez@themiamihurricane.com.