Kylie Pozniak had a few good reasons to put together one of her best basketball games of the season Saturday night at the Northern Sport Centre.
Mired in a six-game losing streak, Pozniak's UNBC Timberwolves hadn't won a single game at home. If that wasn't enough to inspire the third-year guard, Pozniak just had to look across the court at the Mount Royal University Cougars to remind her of the heated battles she had with some of them back in their high school days in Alberta.
After a slow start, Pozniak and the T-wolves combined on a 17-2 run in the second quarter and found an extra gear in the fourth quarter to pull away from the Cougars, winning 71-58 to split their weekend CIS Canada West doubleheader with the Calgary-based Cougars.
"There's nothing better than that feeling of finally getting a win at home in our last one," said Pozniak, 20, a native of De Winton, Alta., who collected a game-high 20 points and had four rebounds in 34 minutes of playing time.
"I've grown up playing club and high school against a lot of those girls so this is very sweet for me."
Pozniak nailed four of her 10 attempts from three-point range and was a perfect 4-for-4 from the free throw line.
The win improved UNBC's record to 3-15, one win ahead of the Cougars (2-16), who beat UNBC 79-56 on Friday. One bad quarter killed the T-wolves' chances in that one. UNBC was outscored 23-8 in the second 10-minute period.
"We've always had trouble scoring – we don't have a lot of natural scorers – but we're a hardworking defensive team and that's what has won us our games and that's how we want to be known, as a hardworking grinding team," said Pozniak.
Collectively, the T-wolves were deadly Saturday from the charity stripe. They went 13-for-16 in the first half and hit 16 of 17 foul shots in the second half. Vasiliki Louka was a perfect 7-for-7, Issy Bourque went 10-for-12, Hannah Pudlas shot 5-for-6 and Emily Aase sunk 3-of-4.
"We practice that a lot, it's a big thing to be able to knock down those free shots," said Pozniak.
Louka, a second-year forward, played a dominant role in securing the victory with a 19-point, 10-rebound effort. The T-wolves also had great support from Bourque, a rookie guard who picked up 14 points and seven rebounds.
Louka, a native of Athens, Greece, who played for the Greek Under-20 team, utilized her six-foot-two frame to control much of the action under the nets in Saturday's victory.
"I think we played a better zone defence than we did (Friday), when we stopped playing the zone defence in the second quarter and they started scoring three-pointers," said Louka. "Today we continued to do like what the coach told us and that was our key for success.
"It's good to finally get a win because we're going to be the same team next year and that shows our progress now."
Yasmine Saghir had 12 points and 11 rebounds, while Melissa Moore picked up 11 points to lead the Cougars.
In Friday's game, Moore paced the Cougars with 16 points. Eleni Steriopoulou had 14 points and Preety Nijjar picked up 13 points and 10 rebounds, while Pudlas shot 11 for UNBC.
T-wolves head coach Sergey Shchepotkin says the weekend win gives his team something to build on for next season when the T-wolves won't be so young and can draw more on their CIS experience.
"We wanted to play for our spectators, for coaches and friends and parents and the girls were really focused today, maybe because of (Friday's game)," said Shchepotkin. "Kylie had a really good game and she showed herself as the leader of the team, so I'm really happy for her. I think we have a good base for next year."
The T-wolves will be in Edmonton Friday and Saturday to wrap up the season against the MacEwan Griffins.
