The offensive runs were there, perhaps a bit more pronounced than sometimes is the case.

Yet early in the fourth quarter, the scoreboard in the fifth and deciding game of the NBLC semi-final series between the Sudbury Five and Windsor Express would read 82-82.

With just over six minutes remaining, the visiting Express led 91-89.

Despite the wild swings that included an incredible 20-0 second quarter run for Windsor, this contest was going to come right down to the wire. It was almost inevitable.

“They executed things a little bit better than us down the stretch,” said coach Logan Stutz not all that long after his team was eliminated thanks to a 108-99 setback in Sudbury on Sunday afternoon. “It came down to a couple of possessions – but that’s the way it goes sometimes.”

At various times, the argument could have easily been made for a runaway win for either side.

The Five, who did not remove the zero from their side of the jumbotron until nearly three minutes had elapsed since the opening tipoff, overcame an early 10-4 deficit and were leading 40-30 midway through the second quarter.

Everybody, it seemed, was contributing.

A.J. Mosby, Montell McRae, Curtis Hollis and Braylon Rayson were hitting from beyond the arc, with Dexter Williams Jr and Evan Harris adding buckets from within the paint. Rayson calmly sank six consecutive free throws, fouled on three point attempts just a couple of minutes apart.

Then the home side went a shade over five minutes without scoring another point. Compounding matters was the fact that by the time a Montell McRae three-pointer rolled the Sudbury count from 40 to 43, the Express had reeled off twenty straight points, taking a 55-43 leads into the break.

Teams who endure a mid-game run of 25-3 by the opposition rarely still find themselves fighting at the end.

The Sudbury Five would beat those odds with yet another comeback, fans on hand hoping for a repeat performance of the game four flurry that would finish with an overtime triumph for the northern crew. With Duane Notice and J.D. Miller stepping up in particularly, Sudbury narrowed the gap to 61-60 with plenty of time remaining in quarter three.

Game on.

“We hung our hat on defense and got a couple of stops,” noted veteran Billy White of Windsor, leading his team with a 26-point effort. “The ball was going our way on the offensive end; we just needed to get a couple of stops.”

Making his numbers all the more impressive is the fact that White played the final 7:16 with five fouls to his name, not a lot of wiggle room for a man who also led the Express with 25 rebounds, roughly a third of the entire team total amassed by the visitors from southwestern Ontario.

“To be honest with you, I was surprised that they didn’t go after me, knowing that I had five fouls,” said White. “My mindset was to still play my game, still play hard and try and make everything tough for them. That’s what I did today.”

To boot, Windsor did this on the heels of a fourth game at home where they relinquished a 16-point third quarter lead in dropping a 124-121 overtime classic to the Five.

“Forget Friday; we had another game to play on Sunday, so that’s where our focus was,” said White. “But it was tough. We wanted to close it out in front of our fans. We felt like we disappointed them, let them down. We knew this was going to be a hard fought game. It’s rare that they lose in this building.”

J.D. Miller (24), A.J. Mosby (19), Braylon Rayson (17), Duane Notice (13) and Montell McRae (12) all hit double digits for Sudbury but Windsor counter-punched with the likes of Justin Moss (21), Latin Davis (20), Nick Garth (14), Ja’Myrin Jackson (14) and Tanner Stuckman (10) – and, of course, Billy White, a somewhat monopolizing figure in the eyes of Five fans in attendance at the game.

“It was hard to find consistency, at both ends,” acknowledged Stutz. “Offensively; defensively; for both teams, at times - there were swings both ways.”

Yet for as much as that pendulum that is momentum swung wildly from one side to the other, it would ultimately all come down to the last half of the fourth quarter. “They executed things a little bit better than us down the stretch,” said Stutz. “We had to come up with a couple of big stops.”

“We had that one point where we just missed the rebound; they got the second rebound and hit a big shot. On offense, we just needed to have the ball go in one or two more times and we would have been fine.”

It didn’t happen, however, so it’s on to 2023-2024 and the excitement that comes with the Sudbury Five being among the NBLC trio of teams (along with London and Kitchener-Waterloo) that is set to join the Basketball Super League, merging with some top end teams from The Basketball League, by all accounts.

“We have the best fans,” stated Stutz proudly. “We’re going to be back, we’re going to be better.”