It really was too much to expect.

To think that the St. Lawrence Vikings would sustain their 10-game Ontario Colleges Athletic Association men’s basketball winning streak through the crippling personnel shortage of the last weekend would stretch credulity beyond mythic proportions.

And while minstrels may one day write songs about the courage of the five players who took to the road for a pair of weekend games, alas there will be nothing in the last verse about how they prevailed in the face of formidible odds.

Even the lowly Canadore Panthers, 5-13 going into their game with St. Lawrence Saturday, had their way with the undermanned Vikings, pinning a 91-79 loss on the plucky survivors of a bench-clearing brawl Feb. 4 against Durham.

In that game, two Vikings faced automatic suspension for their part in a scrap that erupted when a Durham player, former Viking Ajahmo Clarke, clotheslined St. Lawrence’s Jaz Bains into the wall. A third Viking felt supplemental discipline for leaving the bench to join the fracas.

That left the Vikings, down to eight players after losing four at Christmas for various reasons, with just five to make the trip to North Bay. One of them was Steve Houston, a little-used freshman who has been spotted infrequently into the lineup to be groomed for future seasons.

Trolling the student body for some emergency replacements was not an option, as adding players after a team has played 75 per cent of its schedule is forbidden by rule.

The second quarter proved to be the demise for the Vikings in both their weekend games, as Canadore outscored St. Lawrence by 10 points in a game it ultimately won by 12. Sunday in Barrie against Georgian, where the Vikings lost 79-59, the Grizzlies outscored the depleted visitors 22-7 in the second quarter, accounting for 15 points of the eventual 20-point margin of victory.

Andrew Dawkins led St. Lawrence with 36 points against Canadore. Bains had a team-best 19 points Sunday at Georgian.

With the win, Georgian vaulted past St. Lawrence into second place in the East division, with a 13-6 record. The Vikings fell to 12-7, half a game behind Seneca, 12-6. Centennial looms in fifth place at 11-7.

Should the Vikings end the season tied with either Georgian or Seneca, St. Lawrence loses either tie-breaker. The Vikings split with both teams but the point spread in head-to-head play favours the other side in each case, since St. Lawrence beat Georgian by just four points, and the Vikings beat Seneca by just one last month after being beaten by eight points in the fall.

The Vikings have one game left in their regular schedule, Saturday afternoon at home against Centennial, and they’ll play it with a roster restored to full strength.

• The St. Lawrence women improved their record atop the East division standings to 14-1 with a 74-40 win over Georgian in their only game of the weekend Sunday. Lacey Knox led St. Lawrence with 15 points. The Vikings will close their regular schedule Saturday against third-place Centennial, which comes to town with a 10-4 record.