Badgers hope to end first half on winning note
Brock seeks sixth straight victory in women’s hoops
Brock hopes to end the first half of the women’s university basketball season on a winning note when it visits McMaster on Friday night in Hamilton.
Jessica Morris scored 25 points and grabbed nine rebounds to lead
Brock to an 86-64 victory over Laurentian on the weekend in Sudbury.
Sam Keltos and Melissa Tatti also reached double digits in scoring, netting 22 and 18 points, respectively, as the Badgers won their fifth game in a row to improve to 8-1.
McMaster is 6-2 in women’s hoops.
Brock feasted on northern hospitality for the second time in as many days. Keltos had a double-double — 23 points, 14 rebounds — and Eden Ferraro had 10 points and eight rebounds in a 61-41 victory over Nipissing the night before in North Bay.
Keltos said the Badgers didn’t let Nipissing’s 2-5 record lull them into becoming overconfident. “We knew coming into the game that teams like this can sneak up on you if you aren’t focused or prepared. We came into the game focused and prepared to have high energy all game,” said the Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School graduate and transfer from St. Francis College in Brooklyn.
“We shared the ball really well and had an inside-out game, which got us open looks,” said Keltos.
Head coach Mike Rao was pleased with how Keltos and Ferraro played against Nipissing.
“Sam looked very good, and Eden had a big game on the boards,” he said. “Sam is a pick-and-pop big, but she also recognized an inside mismatch when she has to. It’s easy to draw up plays when you have a player of her calibre.”
Brock (5-4) visits McMaster (6-2) in men’s basketball after
going 1-1 on a road trip to northeastern Ontario.
Tyler Brown, with 30 points, Godsman Kwakwah, with 17, and Daniel Cayer, who scored 14 points and had 11 rebounds, were standouts for the Badgers in an 83-74 victory over Nipissing.
Kascius Small-Martin, with 23 points, Cayer, with 18 points and 10 rebounds, Kwakwah, with 18 points, and Brown, with nine points and 11 rebounds, paced Brock in a 99-86 loss to Laurentian.
Friday night’s doubleheader in Hamilton completes a homeand-home between the two schools. Brock defeated the McMaster women, 75-61, on Oct. 20 in St. Catharines, while McMaster won the men’s game, 74-72.
HOCKEY
Jensen Murphy made 30 saves, backstopping Brock to a 3-0 road victory over defending national champion Guelph in women’s university hockey.
The shutout lowered the fifthyear student’s goals-against average to 1.75 while raising her save percentage to .944. Murphy leads the Ontario University Athletics conference with 276 saves.
“Textbook goaltending by Jensen. She was completely dialed in tonight, and we had another total team effort,” head coach Margot Page said. Niamh Haughey, Mishaya Christensen and Annie Berg found the back of the net as the Badgers (5-6) won their second game in a row and second in three nights.
Sarah Brooks, Berg, with a short-handed tally, and Mikayla Flanagan, into an empty net,
each scored a goal, and Murphy stopped 27 shots in a 3-2 victory over visiting Waterloo.
Brock is back on the ice tonight, hosting Western (7-4).
In men’s hockey, the Badgers followed up a 2-1 road victory over York by losing to Ryerson by the same score the next night, also in Toronto. Ryan Burton, on a power play, and Connor Brown, into an empty net, scored against York. Adam Berg scored against Ryerson.
The Badgers (9-6) visit Ryerson (10-5) tonight and are home to Toronto (12-2) on Friday to complete the first half of their regular-season schedule.
RUGBY
A game-winning try in the final minutes gave Brock a 26-14 victory over McGill in the consolation final at the Canadian University Men’s Rugby Championships in Montreal.
The Badgers wound up finishing fifth in the nation despite entering the tournament as the eighth seed. They rebounded from a loss to No. 1 seed British Columbia by defeating Guelph in the consolation semifinals.
Brock took a 5-0 lead into halftime on a Devon Ollson try and regained the lead after McGill went up 7-5 on a try from Carter Bondy.
A game-breaking play materialized 56 minutes into the game. Bondy kicked the ball into the end zone after outracing two defenders to it, and Steven Commerford pounced on it for the game-winning try.
“It was a great play and tremendous effort by Carter. The only way they could defend it was by committing a penalty, so technically a penalty try isn’t awarded to anyone,” head coach Phil Sullivan said.
After going 1-7 and missing the playoffs last season, the Badgers placed third in their division with a 3-3 record. A bronze medal at the OUA championships was the program’s third medal since 2007.
Sullivan suggested last year’s adversity planted the seeds for this season’s success.
“There’s talent, a lot of rugby knowledge and the experience that we gained from a tough year last season,” he said. “They’re a really tight bunch.”