They’re not guaranteed a playoff spot just yet, but the UNBC Timberwolves did everything in their power to stake their postseason claim Saturday night at the Northern Sport Centre.
Their 82-66 win over the Fraser Valley Cascades gave the T-wolves a split of the weekend series and they finished their sixth Canada West women’s basketball regular season with an 9-11 record.
Now comes the waiting game. As one of the two teams to draw a bye on the final weekend of the season still to come, UNBC won’t know for sure if it’s going to the playoffs for the second-straight season and second time ever in its CIS/U Sports history.
“If we had a lost this game there was a very good chance we’d be kicked out of playoffs and now that we won it there’s a good chance we’ll be sitting good going into playoffs,” said UNBC captain and fifth-year guard Kylie Pozniak. “We have a rivalry with UFV, they’re a tough team and they don’t give up. We’ve played them basically every year and winning against them is so much sweeter.”
Still smarting from their 77-70 loss to the Cascades Friday, the T-wolves cut right to the chase in the rematch and lit up Fraser Valley for 53 points in the first half for a 22-point lead. Maria Mongomo accounted for more than a third on UNBC’s points with a 19-point opening 20 minutes.
Shayna Litman and the Cascades chipped away at the lead in the third quarter with Mongomo and fellow forwards Vasiliki Louka and Madison Landry in some foul trouble and an 8-2 run in the fourth quarter reduced the gap to 66-57 but that’s as close as the Cascades got.
Mongomo shot a game-high 27 points, Louka finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds –10 on the defensive side – and Pozniak, in the last home game of her Canada West career, picked up nine points. For Fraser Valley, Sara Simovic collected 24 points, Litman had 18 and Taylor Claggett hit for 11 points and had 11 rebounds,
T-wolves coach Sergey Shchepotkin gave his team full credit for responding to the challenge after a sub-par effort the night before.
“Everybody understood the importance of today’s game and the girls just changed their attitudes, they really wanted to play focused and concentrated and that worked today,” said Shchepotkin. “We made some corrections and they played much better defence and I’m happy that we didn’t give up and played to the end.
Three teams, each with two games left, could potentially knock the T-wolves off their 10th-place perch and boot them down to 13th place which would eliminate UNBC from the 12-team playoffs. There will likely be some jostling in the standings with Manitoba (8-10), Fraser Valley (7-11) and Thompson Rivers (7-11) all still in the playoff hunt. Manitoba and Fraser Valley play each other twice in Abbotsford while Brandon heads to Kamloops for a two-game season-ending set against Thompson Rivers.
“Last year was kind of testing the waters when it came to playoffs and this year we’re more prepared,” said Pozniak. “It’s only a one-game (matchup) the first round of playoffs and I think that’s better for us in order for us to be the first (UNBC) team to get to the second round.”
