Playing before a boisterous alumni night crowd, the Vikes kept pace in a run-and-gun opening quarter, trailing the Winnipeg Wesmen 28-27. But the sa国际传媒 West-leading visitors ran off for an eventual 88-76 victory in an offensive outcome.
That result officially took the Vikes out of their slim shot at the top-four and a bye in the opening round of the playoffs, which begin next weekend.
It was simply too much offence from the Wesmen and not enough defence from the Vikes.
鈥淚t was a track meet and I don鈥檛 know if that鈥檚 the type of game you want to get into,鈥� said Vikes coach Dani Sinclair. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 kind of our style of play, but if you want to do that you have to continue to make shots and we didn鈥檛.
鈥淒efensively, we just let them basically shoot from the free-throw line. Not literally the free-throw line, but within their offence we gave them catches there all night. They鈥檙e a very good team. We have to give them credit, but the stats that stuck out for me were the 10 offensive boards and the 18 turnovers from us and I think they capitalized on every one of those boards and turnovers. That鈥檚 what it felt like.鈥�
The Wesmen led 53-43 at the midway mark and maintained the 10-point lead after three quarters, up 74-64. Winnipeg shot 65 per cent from the floor in the first quarter and 61 at the half.
鈥淚 was hoping they couldn鈥檛 keep it up, but they sort of did,鈥� said Sinclair.
Winnipeg shot just 31 per cent in the fourth quarter to bring that down to 53.6 per cent at game鈥檚 end, but the Wesmen were on fire for most part.
Megan Noonan had a game-high 26 points while Faith Hezekiah added 20. Anoinette Miller had 19 points, eight rebounds and seven assists for a strong night and Lena Wenke added 14 points.
Fifth-year guard Jenna Krug led the way offensively for the Vikes with 20 points and seven assists. Amira Giannattasio had four three-pointers and 17 total points. Jenna Bugiardini added 15 points and eight rebounds and Nicole Karstein recorded 11 points.
Bugiardini had hauled down five rebounds by the half to move to the all-time lead in boards for the Vikes.
A UBC 67-58 victory over Trinity Western sank the Vikes鈥� slim hopes of a top-four spot.
Winnipeg improves to 17-2, while UVic slips to 12-7.
The situation was much more dire for UVic鈥檚 men鈥檚 team, which needed a win to keep its playoff hopes alive. The Vikes did just that in an 86-78 victory to move into a four-way tie for 10th-13th place at 8-11. Fifth-year Grant Sitton led UVic with 25 points, while Scott Kellum had 21.
The teams go at it again today with the women鈥檚 game at 5 p.m. and the men at 7 p.m.
Twitter.com/tc_vicsports
