The numbers suggested the University of Victoria Vikes were going to have their hands full and the digits didn鈥檛 lie.
The No. 8-ranked Saskatchewan Huskies came into Friday night鈥檚 sa国际传媒 West basketball matchup at CARSA gym averaging 88.25 points per game, while allowing just 46.74. The visitors continued to pour it on in an 89-79 victory over the host Vikes in women鈥檚 play.
Early on, the numbers tilted to the Vikes鈥� favour as they stormed out to an 11-3 lead, only to see that advantage slip away by first quarter鈥檚 end, knotted at 17-17.
A big second quarter led to an 43-31 advantage at the half and the Huskies were on their way to improving their mark to 5-0 on the season, while the Vikes fall to 4-3 with a third straight setback.
鈥淭hey made us pay for our mistakes. We weren鈥檛 very disciplined at either end,鈥� said Vikes head coach Dani Sinclair. 鈥淲e gave up 17 offensive rebounds and 12 threes [three-pointers] against a team that can really shoot the ball.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 all good and fine, but you have to be able to rely on your defence,鈥� she added regarding the 79 they managed to put up against what is usually a stubborn Saskatchewan defence. 鈥淟ast weekend we weren鈥檛 hitting shots and we had to rely on our defence and our defence didn鈥檛 show up.
鈥淎gain, it鈥檚 just being undisciplined. Not taking enough pride in our defence and worrying too much about our offensive stops and not worrying about how we鈥檙e going to stop people.鈥�
Kristy Gallagher and Marissa Dheensaw both came out with hot hands, recording nine and eight points, respectively, in the first quarter for the Vikes. The problem was there were no other scorers in the opening 10 minutes and both scorers were in foul trouble early with two apiece and had to sit. Katie Langdon was also tagged with two fouls which left a young squad on the floor.
鈥淎gain, some undisciplined plays that handed momentum back to them in the first half. It was a tough break on the fouls, but I thought the group that came in kept us afloat for a little while,鈥� said Sinclair. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e a very good team, obviously, and they did a lot of things to take us out of our game, but there were many times we did it to ourselves and those are frustrating.鈥�
Gallagher finished with a game-high 28 points, while Dheensaw had 15 points and eight rebounds.
Libby Epoch and Sabine Dukate had 21 points each for the Huskies, who were playing their first road game and it looked that way early, down by eight. Summer Maskiewich added 14 points for the visitors, who out-rebounded the Vikes 17-8 on the offensive boards. Epoch was 5-for-7 from the three-point line, better than the entire UVic team that was 4-for-10.
In men鈥檚 play, the Vikes out-scored the Huskies 23-12 in the fourth quarter to pull out an 87-77 victory, improving to 4-3 on the season with their third-straight win. Jake Newman came up with a clutch 14 points in the pivotal fourth for UVic, which had six shooters in double figures. Lawrence Moore had 31 points in a losing cause.
Both the men and women are at it again today at 5 and 7 p.m.
Twitter.com/tc_vicsports
Note: An earlier version of this story misidentified the Vikes player in the photo. She is Calli McMillan.
