The UNBC Timberwolves denied the University of the Fraser Valley women's basketball team a chance to clinch the No. 1 overall seed heading into the Canada West playoffs, edging the Cascades 68-63 in Prince George on Thursday evening.
The U SPORTS No. 7-ranked Cascades (15-3) led 37-32 at halftime, but were overwhelmed by foul trouble throughout the second half – they were whistled for 20 fouls over the third and fourth quarters – as the T-Wolves (8-9) rallied to win.Â
Despite Thursday's result, the West Division champion Cascades will be seeded No. 2 or 3 when the Canada West playoffs open, depending on what happens in other CW action as the regular season concludes this weekend. The first three rounds of the CW playoff tournament run March 4-6 in Calgary and Lethbridge, and UFV will have a bye to the quarter-finals.
"I think the overall lesson coming out of this game is, we all need to be quite a bit better," Cascades head coach
Al Tuchscherer said afterward. "We need to be ready to play for 40 minutes and fight through adversity and mistakes, and we didn't do a very good job of that, myself included.
"I don't think it was a pressure thing at all – I think it was more of, we've played this team twice, and we won last night handily without really playing our best game. Where our youth and inexperience show tonight is, we didn't come out tonight with a real killer instinct. We thought we would be able to just show up and get another W. Good things have been happening all week, so why wouldn't that continue?"
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The Cascades, coming offÂ
a 73-60 win over the T-Wolves on Wednesday, struggled early in the rematch, falling behind 11-4 as UNBC leading scorer Alina Shakirova scored five quick points. The visitors got back to within 20-18 at the end of the first quarter, and they pulled ahead in the second as
Deanna Tuchscherer caught fire. The sophomore forward poured in nine points in the frame, and UFV led by as many as eight before taking a 37-32 lead into the locker room.
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The third quarter proved disastrous for UFV – the T-Wolves opened on a 17-5 run, with Lucy Guan and Rebecca Landry lighting the fuse with three-pointers and Shakirova adding seven points during the surge as UNBC went ahead 49-42.Â
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The Cascades were able to battle back to equalize 50-50 after
Deanna Tuchscherer and
Natalie Rathler opened the fourth quarter with buckets in the paint. But the final frame was a parade to the free throw line for the T-Wolves, and they re-extended the lead to 62-54.
Maddy Gobeil's three-pointer and Deanna's and-one layup drew UFV back to within 64-60 with 40 seconds left, but it was too little, too late – UNBC hit its free throws in the dying seconds to seal it.
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The Tuchscherer sisters led the way for the Cascades on this night – Deanna finished with 21 points, nine rebounds and three assists, and Julia had 15 points and four boards off the bench. Rathler and
Maddy Gobeil added eight points apiece.
Shakirova finished with a team-high 17 points for the T-Wolves, who enjoyed a 31-5 edge in free throw attempts in the second half. Laura Garmendia Garcia scored nine points off the bench, and Svetlana Boykova and Sarah Kuklisin had eight points each for UNBC.
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