Don’t look now, but the UNBC Timberwolves women’s basketball team is in a playoff position.
The T-wolves reeled off their fourth win in six games Saturday night at the Charles Jago Northern Sport Centre, edging the Mount Royal Cougars 64-55 to complete a two-game U Sports Canada West Conference sweep.
Rookie forward Madison Landry led the way with 16 points, Maria Mongomo hit for 15 and Vasiliki Louka finished with 10 points to pace the T-wolves (5-9) to their fifth win of the season.
Coming off a 70-48 win over Mount Royal on Friday, UNBC’s swarming defence limited six-foot-four post Becky Nash, the league’s top rebounder, to just eight points. Nash still managed to grab 15 rebounds but only three of them were in the offensive court. Angela Driscoll picked up 14 points, the only Cougar to reach double figures. The loss dropped Mount Royal’s record to 2-10.
“I think we did a great job these two games and played as a team and these games were important because we’re in playoff position now and we want to keep it like that,” said Louka.
Louka hauled in 13 rebounds and had plenty of support from Hannah Pudlas and Mongomo, who collected 12 and 11 respectively off the boards.
The T-wolves led by only two points at the half, 31-29, but outscored their opponents from Calgary 17-6 in the third quarter. After a 22-point victory the previous day, UNBC head coach Sergey Shchepotkin said the Cougars were much better at pressuring the ball in the rematch, forcing his team to work that much harder.
Mount Royal went on an 8-0 win and cut the gap to five, down 57-52 with 2:46 left, but Louka responded with a jump shot and sunk a pair of free throws to take the pressure off.
“They did a very good job on scouting and adjusted their game but I’m happy we did our job and we survived,” said Shchepotkin. “They played more press today and showed very good shooting in the first half (Mount Royal hit four of seven three-point attempts in the first 20 minutes) but in the second half we started to play a more aggressive defence and it worked.
“(The Cougars) are looking better than their record and I don’t think there are any teams where we can say it’s an easy game. We need to play each game tough and I’m happy we showed our game and that we are improving.”
The T-wolves roster is now down to just 10 players after second-year forward Izzy Bourque and first-year post Kassidy Dick decided to leave the team to focus more on their academic studies for the second semester. UNBC was missing fifth-year post Pretty Nijjar for Saturday’s game while she was writing her medical school entrance exams.
The T-wolves have six games left this season, four of which will be played on the road at Manitoba (Jan. 27-28) and UBC (Feb. 3-4). They have a bye this weekend. UNBC closes out the regular season at home against Saskatchewan (Feb. 9-10).
All five UNBC’s wins have come in their own gym.
