Madison Landry knew it would be a steep learning curve making the jump from high school basketball with the Duchess Park Condors to playing university ball in the Canada West conference for the UNBC Timberwolves.
What she didn’t realize was how quickly she’d be making key shots as a rookie forward.
One week after Landry delivered a pressure-packed last-second basket to send the T-wolves into overtime in what turned out a two-point loss to the high-powered Alberta Pandas, she was at it again with her late-game heroics Saturday night at the Northern Sport Centre.
Landry was the difference-maker in the end, nailing seven consecutive points to lift the T-wolves to an 82-81 win over the Trinity Western Spartans, their first U Sports win of the season.
The UNBC men followed suit, defeating TWU 86-70 – their second win of the weekend against the Spartans.
Down by 15 points with six minutes left in the fourth quarter, UNBC forward Vasiliki Louka cued the comeback with a layup which set the T-wolves on a 14-3 run. They still trailed 81-77 after Landry sunk a pair of foul shots with 1:10 left.
“We were down by quite a bit at the end and once we got it within eight or 10 points we were like, ‘we can come back from this,’” said Landry.
With a half-minute to play, Louka hauled in an offensive rebound and fed the ball to Landry, who hit a three-point jumper. The clock was down to 15 seconds when Landry stole the ball from Jessie Brown, took off on a breakaway and was fouled by fourth-year Spartans forward Kayla Gordon, who played her high school basketball not far down the road at Cedars Christian.
Landry tuned out the boisterous crowd and made both her free throws. The Spartans still had time after Landry gave her team the lead to get close to the other hoop but Luca Schmidt missed a layup and Louka was there to snag the rebound.
“The free throws were pretty stressful, and it was relief when they went in,” said Landry. “Everyone was really excited after and it was an awesome atmosphere in the gym.”
Louka finished with 19 points, 13 rebounds and six assists. Maria Mongomo had a 17-point game and Landry put up 16 points. Tessa Ratzlaff put up 21 points for the Spartans, while Gordon had 20 points and nine rebounds in her homecoming.
TWU led 46-41 at the half. The Spartan women (4-2) beat UNBC 86-61 on Friday.
The T-wolves (1-5) will travel to Abbotsford to face the Fraser Valley Cascades in a two-game set Friday and Saturday.
“I think it will just be up from here,” said Landry. “This gives us motivation to keep going against all the other teams. We were so close to (beating Alberta) last weekend and it got taken from us and that gave us some fire for tonight. We’ve been putting in so much work in the preseason and up to this point, and it’s nice to see it all paying off.”
