Box Score The University of Fraser Valley Cascades picked up a 64-48 victory on Saturday night to stop the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns' at nine games.
The Cascades avenged a close 73-67 loss Friday night to earn the weekend split and improve to 10-2, while the Pronghorns go to 10-4 in Canada West this season.
In the rematch Saturday, the Cascades were quick out of the gate and never trailed throughout, opening up a 20-point 35-15 lead with 3:58 left in the first half en route to the win.
"Good teams want to set a tone and that's a good team, that's a championship competitor," said Pronghorns head coach Dave Waknuk. "We know as a top-10 team they're going to come motivated. We talked about punching first and setting the tone and they set the tone. They came out really aggressive, got off to a great start and established their physicality. We knew it was coming and for me, we got that great win (Friday) night and this is a learning game and now you're going to see in this league how good teams come back. We have to put two together and that's the lesson we got. But a lot of credit goes to them, that's a good basketball team. They're highly ranked for a reason and they came and showed that tonight."
In Saturday's rematch, the Cascades jumped out to a quick 10-0 lead and an 18-7 lead after the first quarter.
The Pronghorns were able to pull it to 15 with a little over three minutes to go, trailing 58-43.
Cascades head coach Al Tuchscherer was pleased with his team's rebound Saturday and a win that allows them to head home with a split and their 10th win of the season.
"Kudos to Lethbridge, they gave us all sorts of challenges all weekend," he said. "Obviously, taking (Friday's) game, we talked about how we wanted to respond to that tonight and I'm really proud of how the girls came out and just played with a lot of intensity and determination tonight. I thought that was great.
"I wasn't super happy with the second half (Saturday). I thought Lethbridge made a push at the end."
A focus on an interior game and their size advantage paid off for the Cascades on Saturday.
"(Friday) I thought we were a little too perimeter oriented and we really made a conscious effort to get the ball inside and use our size advantage," said Tuchscherer. "We don't really have a size advantage against them with our guard play, but we do with our interior play and it paid off."
The Cascades now return home for a pair of games next weekend against the University of Alberta Pandas. Saturday's match up will also include a halftime ceremony where the Cascades will induct two new members of their Cascades' Hall of Fame.
