TWU’s ‘rebound’ leads weekend’s top 10 varsity moments

Here are 10 memorable moments this weekend from the local university sports world:

1.Just two seasons ago, the Trinity Western Spartans women’s basketball team finished the Canada West regular season with a 4-16 record.

Over the weekend, their continued reinvention under head coach Cheryl Jean-Paul continued as TWU set two major program records in a home-court sweep of Manitoba, pushing their record to 9-5 with six more games remaining.

On Friday, in a 70-65 win, the Spartans set an all-time singlegame high with 55 rebounds. On Saturday, they did it again, this time setting a new school singlegame scoring record in a 93-71 win.

“I’m really proud of the statement that our team made today about our program,” said JeanPaul.

2.You’ve got to like the pluck of the UBC’s men’s hockey team. They started conference play with a 1-6 record, but they’ve won three of their last five to put themselves within a point of the final playoff spot in the Canada West with six more games remaining.

On Saturday at The Doug, UBC (8-12-2) scored three times in the third period against no less than the No. 2-ranked Saskatchewan Huskies (16-4-2) to win 4-2 as Luke Lockhart potted a pair, including the game winner.

3.It’s still a case of close but no cigar for the Simon Fraser Clan men’s basketball team.

On Saturday, in front of a large crowd at the West Gym, the Clan fell behind by as many as 14 points to its Idaho visitors, the Northwest Nazarene Crusaders.

A furious rally lifted SFU into a 55-53 second-half lead, but the end result was an 80-74 setback that keeps the Clan winless in conference play at 0-10. In the loss, former UBC player Kedar Wright scored 25 points for the second game in a row for SFU.

4.The nation’s men’s basketball scoring leader, UBC’s Conor Morgan (24.8 ppg), scored 24 points while teammate Jordan JensenWhyte added 19 more as the No. 3-ranked Thunderbirds travelled to Calgary and beat the host Mt. Royal Cougars 88-79. The win has UBC leading the Canada West conference at 13-1 with six more games remaining.

5.The UBC women’s hockey team is ranked No. 1 and boasts an 18-3-1 record. Two of those losses, however, have come at the hands of the Saskatchewan Huskies, who were up to their old tricks Saturday. Kaitlin Willoughby’s goal nine seconds into overtime gave the Huskies not only a 5-4 win over the Birds, but their second victory over UBC this season.

6.The Fraser Valley Cascades men’s basketball team earned its most impressive win of the season to date, upsetting the No. 6-ranked Alberta Golden Bears 73-71 on the road in Edmonton on Friday evening. Manny Dulay, Vijay Dhillon and Mark Johnson combined to hit 12 triples. The win helped UBC build its gap on second-place Alberta (12-4) to two points with two games in hand. UFV lost Saturday’s rematch 95-78, despite the fact that Dulay, the nation’s leader in three-pointers made, hit on 8-of-10 from distance.

7.The volleyball universe seems centred around TWU, where the No. 1-ranked men and No. 3-ranked women continue to pile up the wins, each completing weekend sweeps in Kelowna over UBC Okanagan to improve to 15-1. Ryan Sclater and Sophie Carpentier led their respective Spartans teams in kills on Saturday.

8.It was starting 2017 with a bang for the UBC men’s rugby team, which crushed the Victoria Vikes 51-14 Saturday on campus to win the Wightman Cup, the Birds annual grudge-match derby against their capital city foes. The Thunderbirds opened the game by building s 20-0 lead.

9.UBC women’s volleyball star Danielle Brisebois was honoured by the award’s namesake himself on Saturday as she was presented with the Rick Hansen Difference Maker Scholarship for her outstanding community outreach. Brisebois and the Birds then went on to beat Mt. Royal 3-0 at War Gym for their eighth straight win.

10.A game to watch this week? There’s been so much parity in the PacWest men’s basketball world that the week begins with Lanagara, Capilano and Vancouver Island locked in a three-way tie for first, all with 8-2 records. With that in mind, Langara in North Van against host Capilano on Friday (8 p.m.) looks like a winner.