In a battle of the undefeated in Canada West women's basketball somebody had to fall and the UNBC Timberwolves found a way to spoon-feed the Trinity Western Spartans the bitter taste of defeat Friday night at the Northern Sport Centre.
Madison Landry cooked up a 25-point concoction that proved especially difficult for the Spartans to swallow in a game decided by the narrowest of margins. The 20-year-old T-wolves guard got into foul trouble when she drew her fourth of the game with a full quarter still to play but managed to hang around the rest of the game to direct traffic and lead UNBC to its biggest win of the season so far - a 78-77 squeaker.
The win kept the T-wolves a perfect 5-0 to start the season, after an 8-0 preseason. The Langley-based Spartans dropped to 6-1 with a chance to gain the split in a rematch tonight at the NSC.
Down 40-34 at the half, the T-wolves got their act together in the dressing room and after a brief stumble to start the third quarter, slowly took control.
"At halftime we got together and we were like, OK, let's start bringing up the energy and intensity and we really brought it together," said Landry. "We all wanted to win and we all cohesively worked together and kept pushing and didn't give up. It took us awhile to get going but we actually came back really strong and bridged that gap
"It feels good - it was a stressful game but we're happy we came out on top. It was a bit too close for my liking. It's a team effort and everyone stepped up today. We know who their scorers are now and we're really going to key on them (in the rematch tonight) and just keep up the intensity from the start of the game."
UNBC led the game for only about six minutes but all of that was in the fourth quarter when the game hung in the balance. Landry wasn't the only T-wolf offensive star worried about being a rule-breaker. Guard Maria Mongomo also got herself in trouble and fouled out with 1:52 left, with TWU nursing a 74-73 lead.
That left it up to the lesser-known T-wolves to pull this one out of the fire. Abby Gibb took over for Mongomo and hit a huge three which put UNBC ahead 76-74 with 1:28 left and after a timely stop at the other end of the court Alina Shakirova drove her five-foot-seven frame straight to the hoop for a lay-up and a four-point lead.
But the Spartans were far from finished and Sarah Buckingham delivered a three-point jumper that reduced the lead to one again with 30 ticks remaining. The T-wolves tried to run out as much of the clock as possible and Landry had it down to 14 seconds when she coughed up the ball under relentless pressure from Kianna Wiens. After their final time-out the Spartans worked the ball down low to Jessie Brown and her baseline buzzer-beater hit off the rim and into the waiting arms of Vasiliki Louka, who hung on as time expired.
Big wins against tough teams are nothing new for the T-wolves. Last season they knocked off Regina when the Cougars were ranked No. 1 in the country. But still, it had to feel good to hand the Spartans their first loss of the season.
But it sure wasn't easy and the T-wolves suffered in the early going from their inactivity last weekend when they drew a bye. They were attacked right away from Buckingham and forward Nicole Fransson and fell behind 23-15 after one quarter. The T-wolves had difficulty matching their own intensity and finish around the net which had them averaging a league-high 90 points in their first four wins.
"I'm happy that we are pretty high now in our ranks and that other teams recognize us (but) I'm not really happy with the game because I believe we can play much better," said UNBC head coach Sergey Shchepotkin.
"It's always difficult to play after a bye. I don't like these byes. Usually we have more energy and play more intense and we're more focused and we missed a little bit in the beginning of the game but I'm happy we didn't give up and got better."
Gibb gave UNBC its first lead of the night with three-pointer with 7:20 left on the clock. That came after Louka sank three buckets to start the final quarter and shrink an eight-point deficit down to one. The lead changed hands three more times before it was all said and done.
Louka was her usual dominant self, contributing 14 points and 18 rebounds, while Mongomo had 17 points and nine rebounds. Buckingham was the hottest Spartan with 23 points, including four threes. Fransson had a strong 21-point, nine-rebound outing replacing Spartans leading scorer Tessa Ratzlaff, who is out with a concussion. Wiens finished with 14 points.
"Obviously, playing without Tessa Ratzlaff we knew we'd have to make some adjustments and there would be the element of surprise there that UNBC wasn't going to be ready for and I thought we played that to the best of our advantage," said Spartans head coach Cheryl Jean-Paul.
"We had some younger ones who came out huge for us. But at the end of the day you still have some all-stars on the other team and they're (5-0) for a reason - they haven't lost a game yet this season for a reason. They had some big plays and hit some big shots and we couldn't respond to that. But I'm very proud of our effort. To lose by one when you're missing a 20-point scorer, that says a lot about everyone else."
In the men's game that followed, the T-wolves did the expected and rolled to a 101-58 victory over the Spartans. UNBC improved to 4-1, handing TWU (1-6) its sixth loss of the season.
Seven T-wolves reached double figures in points. Saje Gosal finished with 16, while Tyrell Laing, Jovan Leamy, Vaggelis Loukas and Chris Ross each hit for 12. Anthony Hokanson and Austin Chandler shot for 11 points.
UNBC jumped out to a 31-13 lead after 10 minutes and increased the gap to 47-23 at the half. The T-wolves didn't let off the throttle in the third quarter and hit seven of their 10 shots from the field to make it a 71-38 game after three quarters.
"For the most part I thought our guys did a good job keeping their focus," said T-wolves head coach Todd Jordan. "Sometimes when the game gets out of hand one way or another you tend to get sloppy and we stayed reasonably sharp for the majority of the game."
The rookie Ross, recruited this year from Seacove secondary in North Vancouver, was the story of the fourth quarter, sinking four of seven from three-point range.
"Anytime we can play our young guys those are super-valuable minutes, " said Jordan. "We ran him off a few screens and he made some shots and he can do that, that's why we recruited him."
Spartans guard Vartan Tanielian collected a game-high 21 points.
The same teams will return to the NSC court tonight at 7 p.m., preceded by the women's game at 5.
