It was a proverbial tale of two halves for the University of the Fraser Valley women's basketball team on Saturday, as they outlasted the Mount Royal Cougars 69-63 in Calgary.
In the first half, the Cascades struggled to get defensive stops – the Cougars poured in 40 points over the opening 20 minutes, going 7-for-11 from beyond the arc, and took a 40-33 lead into halftime.
After the break, though, UFV (12-4) tightened things up considerably, limiting Mount Royal (5-11) to 12 points in the third quarter and 11 in the fourth, thus extending their winning streak to seven games.
"You've got to give credit to Mount Royal – they came out with a lot of fire," said Cascades head coach
Al Tuchscherer, whose team hadÂ
beaten the Cougars handily on Friday, 83-57. "They were excited about getting a win here tonight, and they came hard at us with their dribble-drive motion. We were just trying to put too much pressure on their kids who were attacking, and it was leading to way too many open threes and they were knocking down too many. The second half, we wanted to take the rhythm away from their shooters."
The Cougars were red-hot in the first half, shooting 47 per cent from the field and 63.6 per cent from beyond the arc. Four different Mount Royal players connected from three-point range, with Jenika Martens, Jordan Blaskin and Marnie Garner swishing two apiece, and the Cascades were on their heels defensively for much of the half.
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UFV opened the third quarter on a 15-7 surge, capped by five straight points from
Alexis Worrell, to grab a 48-47 lead, and they took a 56-52 advantage into the fourth.
Yet the Cougars wouldn't quit. The Cascades led by as many as six in the final frame, but MRU battled back to level the score 61-61 on Charity Marlatt's layup with 3:15 remaining. UFV, though, closed on an 8-2 run.
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Canada West scoring leader
Taylor Claggett posted her third straight game of 20-plus points, pouring in a game-high 24 to go with five rebounds.
Deanna Tuchscherer scored 16 points and
Maddy Gobeil added 11.Â
Martens and Garner tied for team-high honours with 14 points apiece for the Cougars.
"It was an absolutely vital learning experience for us here this weekend,"
Al Tuchscherer said. "They're an improved team that has some quality wins. We're telling our team we need to stay focused for 40 minutes both games, and we got away from that a little bit tonight. Fortunately we were able to make some adjustments on the fly, or we'd be walking away with a loss."
The Cascades basketball teams are on the road again next weekend, heading to Kamloops to face the Thompson Rivers WolfPack in a Friday/Saturday set.
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