Sweet success
Another night of winning for UNBC basketball teams
You won’t find UNBC Timberwolves post Vaggelis Loukas near the top of the scoring race in the U Sports Canada West conference. He gets his share of points but that’s not what makes him so valuable to the T-wolves.
It’s the grunt work he does night after night fighting for territory under the basket, hauling in rebounds, setting up screens and using his quick hands to make life miserable for opponents who venture into his turf.
Not blessed with an abundance of height for such a key position, the six-foot-five Loukas makes up for that with his leaping ability, long arms and pure hustle.
In two games against the Trinity Western University Spartans this past weekend at the Northern Sport Centre, both convincing wins for UNBC, Loukas wrote himself into the T-wolves’ record book.
It started with a 101-58 annihilation of the Spartans Friday when he broke Dennis Stark’s all-time rebounds record of 461 and he added to his total with seven more rebounds in a 98-82 win on Saturday. Loukas also bagged three steals in the rematch with the Spartans to move past Billy Cheng into first place on the T-wolves career list, bringing his total to 90 with 14 games still to play in his fifth and final season.
Best of all for the 24-year-old native of Athens, Greece, his record-setting season coincides with the T-wolves’ best-ever start in their seven seasons playing in Canada’s top basketball league. The weekend sweep of the Spartans left the T-wolves third in the 17-team Canada West standings behind only Calgary (7-0) and UBC (7-1).
“We were expecting a tougher night and they gave us a tougher night, but we stayed focused when they made their pushes and we maintained the game within our comfort zone and played the basketball we always play and won the game,” said Loukas.
“Since I’ve been here, five years, this is our best start and we are hoping we will continue this winning streak.”
The fact Loukas regularly draws assignments against players who tower over him makes his rebounding record even more remarkable.
“One of the reasons I’m here is because rebounding is what I offer the team and the guys make it easy for me to grab rebounds,” he said. “I’m undersized for the position I play but I try to bring energy to gain the advantage over the big guys.
“It’s something that I will remember when I leave here, that I helped the team to the best of my ability, and it’s a great honour to be part of that history at UNBC to help move the program forward and become better.”
Fifth-year T-wolves guard Jovan Leamy had his usual strong day at the office. He led all shooters with 20 points and picked up a pair of steals and three assists. James Agyeman put up 15 points and PGSS grad Tyrell Laing collected 14 points. Vova Pluzhnikov had a 17-point night and also had two steals and forced four turnovers. Boria Soriano picked up a team-high 19 points for the Spartans.
After losing by 43 the night before, the Spartans tightened up considerably on defence and were within a point or two of the T-wolves well into the second quarter but couldn’t sustain their offence.
“UNBC played really well the first night and shot the ball really well and we just weren’t ready to play, but tonight there were some positive things for us,” said Spartans head coach Aaron Muhic. “We attacked a lot more inside-out and faced adversity better and I was proud of the guys’ effort. But if we’re going to win, we need to rebound better and that didn’t happen.”
The UNBC women also kept up their winning ways Saturday, beating TWU 83-54 to move into sole possession of first place in Canada West with a perfect 6-0 record.
After a sluggish opening Friday which led to a nail-biting 78-77 victory over the previously undefeated Spartans (now 6-2), the Twolves made a promise to themselves they’d get off to a better start Saturday and they did.
UNBC’s all-star guard, Maria Mongomo, led by example. She hit five of her seven field goals in the opening 10 minutes, picking up 13 points in the opening quarter as the T-wolves built a 24-7 lead. They continued to pour it on and had a 49-29 cushion at halftime. Despite a brief letup in the third quarter, the result was never in doubt and UNBC put it away in the early stages of the fourth quarter.
“(On Friday) we didn’t play as focused and we gave them hope to win (Saturday), so we tried to come out stronger,” said Mongomo. “I guess we were tired (in the third quarter), I think we did a very good effort in the first two quarters and we tried to keep scoring and win the game. We tried to keep the intensity on defence the whole game.”
The Spartans were without their top scorer, Tessa Ratzlaff, who missed both games with a concussion. She’d been averaging 17.5 points per game. After a onepoint squeaker the previous night, T-wolves assistant coach Dave Holmes said his team brought a similar approach to Saturday’s game, not worrying too much about what their opponents would bring.
“For us, today it was finding more communication and intensity on defence because that’s what we were missing (Friday) night,” said Holmes. “We made a run in the first quarter and that set the tone for the rest of the game.”
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The speedy Mongomo shot a game-high 29 points and also had five steals and 11 rebounds. Vasiliki Louka also collected 11 rebounds and had 17 points, while Madison Landry and Russian-born Alina Shakirova each contributed 14 points. UNBC’s shooting accuracy tailed off as the game went on. They shot 57.1 per cent in the first half and that dropped to 32.4 per cent in the second half.
Former T-wolf Sarah Buckingham was the top shooter for the Spartans with 17 points.
“It was a bit of a tough one and it’s important that we use this weekend to get better, we have a lot to improve on,” said Buckingham. “They made some adjustments but we needed to come out with a bit more hustle. We did that in the second half and I was proud of how we played.
“It was fun for me to be back here, I played here in my first year (four years ago) and we knew the matchup was going to be hard coming in. UNBC’s a good team.”
The T-wolves take to the road this weekend to Abbotsford to face the Fraser Valley Cascades. They have two weekends left before the Christmas break and won’t return to their home court until January.