The UNBC Timberwolves women’s basketball team hopes to catch fire down the stretch as they completed a weekend sweep of the Mount Royal Cougars at the Northern Sports Centre on Saturday winning 64-55.
Both teams got off to a sluggish start offensively in the first half virtually mirroring the beginning of Friday’s contest with the only difference being a 31-29 edge for the T-Wolves at half-time.
Mount Royal’s press defence kept them in the ball game by forcing turnovers and sloppy passes at times from UNBC.
It wasn’t until some timely free-throws by Hannah Pudlas iced the victory for the T-Wolves completing the weekend sweep.
Madison Landry led the way offensively for UNBC with 16 points including a 7 for 13 performance on field goals.
MYPGNOW caught up with Landry after the game and says the two wins were key in order to stay in the playoff hunt. “These wins were really important, hopefully it boosts us in the rankings so its really good to get these two wins.”
Stepping up defensively for the Timberwolves was fourth year post and PGSS grad Emily Asae who also contributed with 8 points and 8 rebounds in 26 minutes of action filling in for Preety Nijjar who didn’t play in the game.
Asae says the Cougars gave them all they could handle during various stretches of the game. “I think they were really eager to get a win against us, we just had to focus on defence this weekend as Nash is a very strong player on their team so we really needed to make sure she didn’t get the ball at all.”
UNBC improves to 5-9 on the season and is holding down one of the final playoff spots in Canada West after leaping into 11th place in the standings.
The Timberwolves are on a bye next week and then head to Winnipeg on January 27 and 28 when the play the Manitoba Bisons.
On the men’s side, the Timberwolves fell short at home for the second consecutive night losing to Mount Royal 72-69.
After falling behind 22-9 in the first quarter, UNBC came back with a resurgent second quarter led by Rhys Elliott and Elliott Rowe outscoring the Cougars 24-8 giving the T-Wolves a 33-30 edge at recess.
The Timberwolves continued to be neck and neck with the much bigger Mount Royal squad outscoring them 28-25 in the third quarter.
However, Mount Royal stormed back in the fourth when leading scorer Josh Ross and Derek Wolf made several key shots to preserve the win.
UNBC had a chance to take the lead with 20 seconds left until Elliott bobbled the ball and made contact with Wolf who later made 2 foul shots.
Wolf says the Timberwolves tenacity all game long made things more difficult throughout the entire game. “They came and battled and didn’t quit. We came out firing in the first quarter and then they handed it right back to us in the second and they just had no quit during the entire game.”
“They were playing Golden State kind of ball where they would just pass, kick and shoot three’s and our big men were kind of having a tough time sliding with them.”
Timberwolves Head Coach Todd Jordan believes it’s a tough pill to swallow for his team heading into the bye-week. “I actually thought we controlled the game from the second quarter until the middle of the fourth, I thought we controlled the game and then they made an adjustment defensively and it took us a few minutes to figure that out and that was the difference in the game.”
UNBC drops to 4-10 on the season and will also travel to Winnipeg in two weeks time when they play Manitoba.