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Baker hit the winning basket with just over a minute left in the game, which proved to be the difference. The Nighthawks had three trips down the floor with a chance to tie the game, but were unable to make their shots count.

“We took some bad shots, we over-penetrated and we didn’t pass to our shooters,” said Nighthawks head coach Tarry Upshaw. “They did a really good job of coming back to what they wanted to do. I’m not used to how they play out west, but where I’m from, there must have been about 20 fouls in the second half that weren’t called and then there were fouls that were called, which I don’t know if they were fouls or not, but you can’t fix that stuff. All you can take care of is yourselves and down the stretch we didn’t make our passes, didn’t find open shooters and we forced the ball.”

The Stingers went into the game without star point guard Xavier Moon, who was out with a foot injury. In his absence the Stingers were able to get plenty of offensive contributions from the rest of their lineup. Eight of their 10 players on the roster had at least seven points in the contest.

“It’s easy to overlook Jordan Baker, but he’s a heart and soul player, he’s out there, he’s giving effort on both ends,” said Stingers head coach Barnaby Craddock. “But I thought we had a lot of individuals step up for a play here and a play there and we needed every one of them.”

The Stingers got off to a good start as Ellis had the hot hand early. Ellis had 10 first-half points as Edmonton took a 41-39 lead into the break.