Cascades complete UNBC sweep
Foiled by consecutive losses to the Fraser Valley Cascades over the weekend in Abbotsford, the UNBC Timberwolves (6-2) have lost their grip on first place in the U Sports Canada West women’s basketball league.
The Cascades hung on to beat the T-wolves 74-71 Saturday, after knocking UNBC from the undefeated ranks in a 72-66 decision on Friday
Following up on her 28-point performance Friday, Taylor Claggett shot a game-high 25 points and hauled in 11 rebounds in the rematch for the Cascades, who improved to 5-5. Katelyn Mallette backed Claggett’s efforts with 15 points and Amanda Thompson collected 13.
Madison Landry was the Twolves top shooter with 19 points. Maria Mongomo was held to 17 points (three in the first half) and had 10 rebounds. Vasiliki Louka collected 16 points and 11 rebounds. Alina Shakirova contributed 13 points coming off the bench.
The T-wolves shot just 30.9 per cent (21-for-68) from the field. Fraser Valley was considerably better at 43.8 per cent, hitting 28of-64 from the field.
“It was pretty much the same game, right?” said T-wolves head coach Sergey Shchepotkin on canadawest.org.
“UFV shot very well, and they’re aggressive and played pretty good defence.”
Fraser Valley led 35-28 at halftime.
The T-wolves cracked the U Sports top-10 national ranking for the first time in the school’s seven-year Canada West history. While their two weekend losses will certainly drop them out of the rankings, nobody’s panicking in the UNBC camp.
“We’re still a young program,” Shchepotkin said. “Two years ago, nobody thought about us as a top10 team. We’re progressing, and it’s happened that we’ve made the top 10. It’s a good sign for us, but I still believe we need a lot of work.
“It’s good to play versus strong teams like UFV and to get that experience. It’s a test for us. I think we played pretty well. It’s not about the result – it’s more about what quality of the game we’re showing. I’m happy that we fought until the end and tried our best to win. They shot better than us, so they won. But at least we are not down too much. We are showing, I believe, pretty good basketball. We’ll keep working on it.”
The UNBC men also lost both their games to Fraser Valley to drop to 5-3. The Cascades beat them 85-79 on Saturday, after an 81-62 win the night before. In each game, the Cascades rebounding proved the difference. It was a new ripple in an otherwise solid season for the T-wolves, who were off to their best-ever start.
—
—
“We’ve been a pretty good rebounding team so far through the preseason up until now, and I think this is the first weekend we’ve really been beat up on the glass by anybody,” said Twolves head coach Todd Jordan on canadawest.org.
“That Fraser Valley team this weekend showed us a pretty good level of hard as far as going to the glass, and we need to be able to match that. Our schedule down the stretch, we’ve got a lot of bigger teams coming up, and that’s going to be an important part.
“This league, it’s a war every single weekend, and these things happen. You take two losses, and it’s all about how quick you can rebound.”
The Cascades sealed the win with their long-range shooting in the fourth quarter, hitting five threes in the final 10 minutes. Three of those triples came out of the hands of Sukhman Sandhu, who picked up 22 points in 17 minutes of playing time.
Parm Bains sunk four threes on the way to a 19-point game and also had five assists, while Mark Johnson totalled 12 points and 13 rebounds. Jovan Leamy scored 15 of his gamehigh 23 points in the first half. Austin Chandler had 15 points, James Agyeman had 14 and Tyrell Laing finished with 13.
Both T-wolves teams will be in Saskatoon to play the Saskatchewan Huskies Thursday and Friday.