VANCOUVER — Frank Linder’s game-winning three-pointer with 24 seconds remaining snapped a 79-79 tie and lifted Nanaimo’s No. 2-ranked Dover Bay Dolphins to an 82-79 win over the previously undefeated, reigning B.C. champion Spectrum Thunder of Victoria in the second of two afternoon semifinals at the Vancouver College Emerald tournament on Friday.
“Today, Frank really stepped up,” said Spectrum head coach Tyler Verde of Linder, the UBC Thunderbirds’ signee who capped the battle of Quad-A giants with a game-high 39 points, 25 of which he scored in the second half.
“He hit a lot of jumpers, a lot of tough shots and he is a hell of player,” continued Verde. “I’ll take my hat off to him.”
The victory propels Dover Bay into the Emerald championship final Saturday (6 p.m.) against No.3 Oak Bay of Victoria after the Bays’ got 32 points from UVic Vikes’ signee Toren Franklin as part of a lopsided 101-67 win over the host Fighting Irish. Spectrum faces No. 4Vancouver College in the third-place game at 4 p.m.
Linder’s winning shot came after he got a quick paint touch, passed off to his Grade 10 brother, point guard Joe Linder, then quickly re-spaced outside on the left wing of the three-point arc where he turned his brother’s kick-out pass into the winning bucket.
Spectrum, which trailed 41-26 in the second quarter, and 68-57 late in the third, put together a 7-0 run to knot the score at 79-79, had a number of opportunities to either take the lead or tie the game, including a three-pointer off a steal from near half-court which caromed off the front of the rim at the buzzer.

After losing by 29 points (91-62) to Spectrum at Dover Bay on Dec. 30, then losing by 13 last week to the Thunder in the final of Spectrum’s own Road to March tourney, winning on Friday meant a lot to psyche of the Dolphins.
“The last game we played them, we were up and then some unfortunate foul trouble left guys where they couldn’t defend properly, so they knew they could win this game,” Dover Bay head coach Darren Seaman said after the win. “We all felt really confident that this was a game we could win. There was not one doubt in our bones. We knew we could do it. We just wanted to keep shrinking the gap.”
Joe Linder finished the game with 26 points including 19 in the first half as together, the Linder brothers combined to score 58 of the team’s 82 points.
Spectrum guard Justin Hinrichsen dropped 35 points in the loss, while guard J Elijah Helman added 17 and forward Tyler Felt a further 15 in the loss. Both Felt and Hinrichsen will join the Bays’ Franklin on the Victoria Vikes roster next season.

For the Thunder’s Verde, the loss was not going to be in vain.
“Honestly we get a lot out of it,” he said afterwards. “We get some adversity which we haven’t had a crazy amount of in a while. We get some learning experiences and we get some grit, some toughness.
“We have been struggling lately in the beginning of games, we’ve come out flat, almost like we’re complacent. We’ve rallied back to win those games, or in this case, came up just short… but we did not play very good and we haven’t in a little while to be honest. This is exactly what the guys need to kind of give them a little kick in the butt… like ‘Hey we’re not invincible and we’ve got a lot of work to do.’”
It doesn’t get any easier for the Dolphins on Saturday, and Seaman admitted as much with the reality of getting yet another tough game, this one against the No. 2 Bays.
“Oak Bay just gets better and better and better as the season goes on,” said Seaman of the team which rained down 15 treys in its own semifinal win against the Irish. “(Oak Bay head coach) Chris (Franklin) does such an amazing job preparing his guys. We’ve learned so much from playing these two teams. I will learn a lot and the boys will learn a lot from Oak Bay tomorrow, win or lose.”
In support of Toren Franklin’s torrid 32-point performance, the Bays had six players scoring between eight and 12 points against Vancouver College.
Olin Lakos and Diem Orser had 12 each, Simon Wiwcharuk-Burr scored 10, Marcus Kao and Lucas Border each scored nine points, while Jarrah Chadwick Rupp added eight more.
While Spectrum and Oak Bay will continue to battle each other through the end of the regular season and into first round of the post-season, after Saturday, Dover Bay will sequester itself in the Hub City and won’t have a chance to the Thunder or Bays until the Vancouver Island championships.
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