The UBC Thunderbirds were formidable foes.
Fortified by a nine-game winning streak, they'd lost just four of 16 of their U Sports Canada West women's basketball games and still had a shot at taking over first place heading into the second-last weekend of the regular season.
Leave it to the UNBC Timberwolves to foil that plan.
They didn't get discouraged when the T-birds took off on a 10-0 run to open the afternoon encounter in front of a school-day crowd of 572 at War Memorial gym Friday in Vancouver. Instead, the T-wolves used that slow start as incentive to get their act together. By the end of the quarter, thanks to Abby Gibb's buzzer-beater and a seven-point outburst from Maria Mongomo, UNBC grabbed the lead and never let go, rolling to a 71-60 victory which ended a two-game skid.
"I think today we played as a team, we helped each other and had good energy," said UNBC head coach Sergey Shchepotkin on canadawest.org. "I was happy with our overall defence and we shot the ball well and of course were a bit lucky with some buzzer beaters that also gave us energy."
In fact, there were three last-second shots to end quarters, all coming out of the hands of the T-wolves.
Alina Shakirova had just finished hitting a pair of free throws with 1.2 seconds left in the half and on the ensuing inbound play Madison Landry picked off Gabrielle Laguerta's pass attempt and from three-point range hit the net to give UNBC a 37-25 lead.
"It feels great to see those go in," said Shakirova. "It gives you energy. You just realize it is your day, and takes the air out of their sails. They don't always go in, so to have it happen twice was great.
"We knew they would come out with energy. They're a really good team, so we had to weather that storm. It was good to see shots fall for us, and we were able to hold on."
The T-wolves came out firing in the third quarter and had just increased the gap to 49-33 when Julia Gallant came off the bench for her first game action. Gallant made one field goal and hit on all three of her triple attempts, the third swish coming with no time left on the clock after Gibb made a steal. That gave the T-wolves a 61-38 lead, which proved too deep of a hole for UBC.
"We just needed to keep shooting," said Gallant. "It was important to keep that flow. If shots aren't falling for one player, we need to have the next person step up, keep the energy and keep shooting."
The T-wolves improved to 10-7, seventh in Canada West. They're trying to finish at least sixth, which would guarantee they would host a playoff game for the first time in their seven-year Canada West history.
Landry shot a game-high 19 points and had six assists. Shakirova finished with 16 points, Mongomo had a 15-point game and Vasiliki Louka picked up 12 points and 13 rebounds.
For the T-birds, Maddison Penn picked up 15 points and Kyla Filewich had a 12-point game.
UNBC hit all 12 of its foul shots while the T-birds had their troubles from the charity stripe, going 13-for-25.
The same teams meet again today at UBC. Game time is 5 p.m.
Later Friday, the UNBC men lost 94-75 to UBC. In the game, the Thunderbirds controlled the first quarter (27-18) and the third quarter (28-12) and rode those stretches to the victory.
Patrick Simon led the hosts with 20 points while Mason Bourcier added 19 and Grant Shephard had 18. For UNBC, Tyrell Laing put up 19 points and Anthony Hokanson connected for 15 off the bench.
The Timberwolves slipped to 8-9 on the season while the Thunderbirds improved to 16-1.
The UNBC and UBC men will square off again today (7 p.m. start).
After today's rematches, both T-wolves teams will have two games left in the season. They'll wrap it up next weekend when they host the Lethbridge Pronghorns in two-game sets at the Northern Sport Centre.
