T-wolves striking Spain off their bucket list
As the only Spanish-speaking player on her team, Maria Mongomo will be the one to break down barriers for the UNBC Timberwolves later this month when they begin a week-long tour of Barcelona, Spain.
Mongomo excels at navigating through traffic and has shown that throughout her four-year basketball career as one of the top point guards in the U Sports Canada West Conference.
But playing tour guide for a team of foreigner visitors is a new role for Mongomo, a native of Las Palmas, Spain, and she’s anxiously awaiting their arrival in her home country on Aug. 26, where the T-wolves will be based for a week of training sessions and two exhibition games lined up against a semipro Spanish team.
“Maria is excited to share with us her culture and show us the city and country, it’s going to be a good one,” said UNBC women’s team head coach Sergey Shchepotkin.
“I’ll just need Maria’s help and Google Translator.
“I’m trying to have an international trip every three or four years and last time we traveled to Greece four years ago. We’re going to practice every day over there, plus we will have a couple of games and we will try to see all the sights, so I hope it will be a good trip for the girls.”
Mongomo, a two-time Canada West all-star who made the U Sports all-rookie team in 2016, will be one of two Spaniards on the T-wolves roster this season, now that they’ve added 18-yearold Laura Garmendia Garcia, a native of Castelldefels, near Barcelona.
The environmental science major is one of eight new players wearing the green and gold, but an ACL knee injury last season will keep the six-foot-two forward out of game action until the 2020-21 season.
“Laura will be a redshirt this year for us, as she recovers from her injury,” said Shchepotkin. “I think it will be a good thing, as it gives her time to rehab, while also adapting to Canadian lifestyle and Canadian university.”
Garmendia Garcia played for a club team last season that finished fourth in the national championship.
“She’s a tall girl but she is light,” said Shchepotkin. “She’s a hard worker and she’s very good at rebounds and defence and hope she will give us a lot of energy and help on defence and on the boards. She has a pretty good shot, too.”
Shchepotkin, a native of Russia who coached the Moscow Dynamo women’s team before he came to UNBC six seasons ago, has also recruited six-foot-one Russian post Svetlana Boykova, who comes with university experience.
The bioscience major will try to fill the huge void left when Vasiliki Louka graduated after five stellar years with the program. Louka, a Canada West first team all-star, left Prince George as the T-wolves’ all-time leader in points, rebounds, minutes played and blocks and is now with a pro team in her native Greece.
Shchepotkin played 15 seasons of pro basketball in Russia and also coached in Lebanon before he came to Canada.
His contacts in Europe have found talented players willing to make the move to Prince George who have been key in the team’s progressive success the past few seasons. The T-wolves made the postseason for the third straight year last season and won their first-ever U Sports playoff game. Forward Alina Shakirova of Moscow, Russia is about to begin her third season at UNBC, which gives the T-wolves four European players.
“Its quite challenging to recruit local students here and we want the program to grow faster and to be well-known in the country, so my first thought was to bring good foreigners here to help our program and it’s worked out quite well,” said Shchepotkin. “Hopefully it will help us.
“There are big changes this season with eight new players, so it’s going to be different, but I hope we will stay in the same level. We have a really tough schedule with UVic, UBC and Trinity Western and in the second part we have Calgary and Regina.”
UNBC opens at home against UVic on Nov. 1. The team begins its exhibition schedule in October with two games in Nanaimo against Vancouver Island University, then will travel to Montreal to play Concordia, McGill and the University of Quebec.
Shchepotkin, his wife Alla, their daughter Katie, 15, and nine-yearold son Sam, will spend two weeks in Spain sightseeing and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea before the team tour begins.