In five seasons of running the court playing basketball for the UNBC Timberwolves, Mercedes Van Koughnett found herself in unfamiliar territory Saturday night.
She was sitting in the stands as a spectator.
A sprained ankle that briefly forced her to the sidelines the previous night was still swollen for Saturday's game against the University of Regina Cougars and that kept her out of the lineup.
The T-wolves certainly missed Van Koughnett's steady shooting hand and well-tuned rebound radar. She's the T-wolves' pitbull at point guard and their third-leading scorer, averaging 13.7 points per game. She leads UNBC in rebounds (10 per game), steals (21), blocked shots (five), and average minutes per game (34.1).
"I've had a lot of problems with ankles," said Van Koughnett. "I've never missed a regular season game but exhibition I've missed a few. If I've rolled them, I'd roll them in exhibition or during the week, when I'd have a few days off.
"It's really hard to watch from the sidelines. But to see them work really hard and leave it on the court was nice to see. [Regina is] very skilled and I thought we were the hardest-working team on the court, even if the score didn't reflect that."
Even with Van Koughnett in the lineup for Saturday's game, it's doubtful UNBC would have beaten the CIS No. 6-ranked Cougars, who won by 20. But on most nights the 22-year-old Duchess Park graduate is a proven difference-maker. Had she not come down hard and bent her right ankle the wrong way over the foot of a Brandon Bobcat defender in the third quarter, the T-wolves' three-point loss last Friday quite easily could have been a UNBC victory.
As a full-time athlete, Van Koughnett, the middle child in a family of seven kids, has developed a high degree of pain tolerance, which has no doubt contributed to her lengthy record of consecutive games served. She's still waiting for two stress fractures in her left foot to heal, but that injury hasn't kept her off the court.
"The fifth-year body is kind of breaking down but you just have to play through it," she said.
Van Koughnett relishes her role as a leader and is always willing take on the task as the T-wolves' policewoman. She made that abundantly clear to Cassie Cooke, Brandon's leading scorer, when Cooke ran into a UNBC player and knocked her down. Van Koughnett immediately went at Cooke to send out a message with a two-handed push, which drew a referee's warning but not a foul.
The T-wolves are now in their second season in the CIS. Van Koughnett says it helped that UNBC had success at the B.C. college level before they made the jump to university ball. But she did predict the T-wolves would be further ahead of the game than they currently are. Having lost their last two games, they now sit fifth in the Canada West Pacific Division with a 3-5 record.
"From my first year to my third year we played in the college league and it was a good step," said Van Koughnett. "If we had gone CIS right away I probably wouldn't have been ready but I feel like having all that experience in college and being a top-ranked team in college really helped us get ready for CIS.
"We were a run-and-gun team in college and that has really transferred here. We have to be an energy team and run as hard as we can. That's what's going to make us win."
Van Koughnett has been practicing this week and should be able to play tonight in Kelowna, where the T-wolves face the last-place (1-7) UBC Okanagan Heat in the first of a two-game weekend set.
"We saw UBCO in preseason and it was a really close game, we won by only two points," said Van Koughnett. "These two games are going to be huge. We have to come out hard and try to get those wins on the road."
