Cascades sink UNBC in key game
In a perfect world, the UNBC Timberwolves would have gone home from the gym Friday night at the Northern Sport Centre having pretty much sealed the playoff fate of the Fraser Valley Cascades. A win over the Abbotsford-based Cascades would have left the T-wolves in great position to wrap up their second-straight U Sports Canada West playoff berth with a potential weekend sweep.
The Cascades were not about to let that happen. They got the T-wolves flustered in the third quarter, outscoring UNBC 27-18. That put them into the driver’s seat with their first lead of the game and they left their opponents stranded in the ditch, winning 77-70.
Fraser Valley’s third-quarter surge started when guard Sara Simovic hit back-to-back layups and all of a sudden the T-wolves’ lead was gone with 6:41 to play in the third.
That was Shayna Litman’s cue to heat up her shooting hand. Held to nine points in the first half, she put up 10 in the third quarter and six more in the fourth to finish with a game-high 25 points.
The fifth-year forward from Coquitlam stepped out of the six-foot-three shadow of UNBC forward Vasiliki Louka to win the battle of the boards over her designated check, finishing with 15 rebounds, one more than Louka, the Canada West rebound leader.
“Those shots that (Simovic) made for us were absolutely huge for us, honestly that was the game-changer and that’s what helped us bring it home,” said Litman.
“Our coaches have been talking about (matching up with Louka) the last two weeks and it’s pretty much been my goal to do what I can because I’m pretty undersized (fivefoot-11) against her. I just did what I could.”
The Cascades stretched their lead to 14 points with a three-point Victoria Jacobsie jump-shot early in the fourth quarter. Some tough rebounding defensively from Louka created a few turnovers and UNBC rode Madison Landry’s layup efficiency to get it back to a three-point game with 1:46 left. They got the ball to Maria Mongomo to get even closer but the third-year Spaniard couldn’t find the net. Amanda Thompson sealed it with a threepoint kiss with about a minute left.
Louka led the T-wolves with 21 points and 14 rebounds. Mongomo had 16 points, held to just six in the second half, and Landry shot 15 points. Simovic finished with 14 points for the Cascades.
Fraser Valley out-rebounded their opponents 42-32 and that made all the difference in the world to UNBC coach Sergey Shchepotkin.
“We lost the boards and I’m not happy,” said Shchepotkin.
“The third quarter wasn’t good, our defence was far, far away from what we want to see on the court,” he said. “UFV is a very experienced and a very good team, so we can’t play with them with 50 per cent defence. We want them to pay full attention on defence and do a better job there.
“I want to see everything better (in today’s game).”
UNBC (8-11) will get one more crack at the Cascades (7-10) in the rematch (5 p.m.) at the NSC – the regular-season finale for UNBC.