When you're hot you're hot, and right now the Lethbridge Pronghorns are locked in a winning groove at just the right time in the U Sports Canada West women's basketball season.
It took nearly half the game to find their rhythm but they schooled the UNBC Timberwolves in a dominant third quarter, steamrolling the T-wolves 26-8 on the way to a 77-71 win Friday at the Northern Sport Centre.
Whatever was said in the intermission in the Pronghorn locker room, it worked. They made the adjustments needed to minimize the damage from the T-wolves' three top-10 scorers - Vasiliki Louka, Maria Mongomo and Madison Landry - and went to work setting the pace with a crisp passing attack that gave them the win in the first of a two-game weekend regular-season finale.
"At halftime we talked about moving the ball more and taking smarter shots and boxing out on defence and really making it tough for them to get to the hoop and we were really physical on the defensive side," said Pronghorns guard Katie Keith, who set the example for her teammates with a team-high 17 rebounds, 13 of which came on defence.
"It was super-physical down there."
The Pronghorns came in on a six-game winning streak and it appeared that might be in jeopardy when the T-wolves jumped in front 39-31 after 20 minutes. It all crumbled on the T-wolves in the third quarter.
Consecutive threes from Danielle Fritzke and Kacie Bosch put the visitors ahead 46-41. Landry put up a three for UNBC but the Pronghorns fired back with nine unanswered points to increase the gap to 55-44. Tough defence under the hoop from Keith and Amy Mazutinec made life miserable for the T-wolves, who couldn't buy a basket for long stretches of the third quarter.
"We've been working really hard in practice to refine the small things and the defensive rotations have gotten a lot better and it's just clicking this time of year," said Keith. "We definitely are peaking now at just the right time."
The win improved the Pronghorns' record to 12-7, while UNBC dropped to 10-9. Both teams are trying to clinch top-eight finishes which would guarantee a home playoff date.
"Right now we've just been preaching about playing our best basketball and it's starting to come,"said Pronghorns head coach Dave Waknuk. "There are still things to improve but I think we're playing with confidence. UNBC had a great start and we were down at halftime and had a great third quarter to battle that through.
"We need to play up-tempo basketball and run the floor and use our athleticism and we had to get the game faster. They did a good job of controlling that tempo in the first half and we did a good job of adjusting and getting the ball up the floor."
The Pronghorns continued to work for their breaks and were rewarded with points to start the fourth quarter. After four Pronghorns misfired, Jessica Zarowny finally found the net and was fouled. She missed trying to complete the three-point play but the Pronghorns kicked out the rebound to Latvian import Asnate Fomina and she nailed it from three-point range for a 68-54 lead which proved insurmountable for the T-wolves.
Fomina led the Pronghorns with 21 points, Bosch had 16 and Keith and Zarowny each hit for 12.
"Lethbridge is a great team and so we have to be the aggressor in order to put some points on the board, and play good defence," said UNBC guard Abby Gibb. "We didn't follow the plan that Sergey (UNBC coach Shchepotkin) told us and as a result we didn't do our jobs. I think if we follow the plan (in today's rematch) we should have no problems."
Mongomo still managed 21 points, Landry collected 21 and Louka had a strong outing as well with 14 points and 20 rebounds. But their collective power failure in the third quarter gave the Pronghorns life. UNBC's big three had plenty of good looks but Lethbridge took away the easy points, especially near the net.
"They started hitting their threes - they're a really well-balanced team and you can see in their stats almost everyone has the ability to contribute a lot so it's tough if someone catches fire because someone else can step up right after we stop the first person," said T-wolves assistant coach Mark Johnson. "That 26-8 run was just hard to overcome. They moved the ball well, they were very unselfish and I thought they had more energy, it looked like."
The same teams are back on the court at the NSC today at 5 p.m.
Big win for UNBC men
The Canada West men's basketball playoffs are still a couple weeks away but try telling that to the UNBC Timberwolves.
They played like there was no tomorrow and got rewarded.
They beat the Lethbridge Pronghorns 96-90 Friday night at the Northern Sport Centre, keeping the T-wolves' hopes alive of hosting their first-ever U Sports playoff game.
An energetic start that gave the T-wolves leads of 10-0 and 16-4 in the first quarter put the necessary wind in their sails. They needed those points to hold off a strong surge from the Pronghorns in the fourth quarter.
UNBC carried a 50-34 lead into the intermission but Lethbridge chipped away and had it down to an eight-point gap, down 70-62 after three quarters. Pronghorns guard Zac Overwater put up 13 of his game-high 35 points in the final 10 minutes and all of a sudden it was a two-shot game with UNBC clinging to a 92-88 lead with about a minute left.
Eric Pierce went to the foul line and cut the gap to two and with 25 seconds left Vaggelis Loukas got fouled underneath the hoop. He sunk his first free throw but the second kicked off the rim right to Tyrell Laing. He immediately drew the foul and made both shots to seal the victory.
The win improved the T-wolves' record to 9-10, while Lethbridge dropped to 11-8.
"They're definitely a well-oiled machine in the sense that they kept coming at us in waves, said Laing. "They gave us a couple of runs we had to withstand and we were able to do that.
"Overall we were able to knock down shots at a high percentage, I think we shot 53 per cent of our field goals, which helped us in the win."
Laing ended up with 22 points and made four of his nine three-point attempts. Vova Pluzhnikov, Jovan Leamy and James Agyeman each shot 16 points for the T-wolves.
Pierce and Kyle Peterson each finished with 13 points for Lethbridge.
If the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack loses its game tonight in Calgary and the T-wolves manage to complete the sweep of Lethbridge today (7 p.m. start), they will host a first-round playoff matchup at the NSC.
"Our effort was a little better in the second half but we were poor defensively all night in our rotations and we had some guys not show up tonight and that can't happen this time of year," said Pronghorns coach Mike Hansen.
