VICTORIA 70
BRANDON 65
There will be playoff basketball at CARSA Performance Gym.
The UVic Vikes women鈥檚 team saw to that with a 70-65 win over the visiting Brandon Bobcats on Saturday night to clinch a sa国际传媒 West Pioneer Division post-season berth and grab a host position for the opening round, finishing fifth.
Victoria will welcome the Trinity Western Spartans in a best-of-three series, starting Friday.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 huge, hosting our first playoff games here next week, which is pretty exciting,鈥� said Vikes head coach Dani Sinclair. 鈥淔or us, to be able to do that is important. Hopefully, for us, we see it as a new season. Yeah, we finished 9-11, but now we start fresh and see what we can do.鈥�
They did it remarkably well this weekend in solidifying their defensive play, something Sinclair has pounded home all year.
鈥淲e鈥檝e been talking about playing better defence and I think we did that,鈥� said Jenna Krug, who led the Vikes with 19 points, while Amira Giannattasio added 17. 鈥淲e get to start at home, which is really exciting. It鈥檚 nice to not have to travel somewhere next week.
鈥淚 think we were all just super focused throughout the week here on the things we needed to get better at. We just executed well and worked hard right through the weekend.鈥�
The Vikes grabbed an early 18-6 lead, but had that whittled down to 21-18 after the first quarter. At the half, the hosts took a 40-36 advantage into the dressing room and they opened it up to a 59-47 lead after three quarters as they continued to pressure the Bobcats.
Brandon clawed back to within three points on a pair of occasions late in the game, but it was a devastated Bobcats team that walked off the CARSA floor.
The Vikes did split their pair of regular-season games against Trinity Western, losing 78-70 and winning 77-52 in Langley.
In men鈥檚 play, the Vikes said goodbye to graduating seniors Mack Roth, Reiner Theil and Brandon Dunlop, who were all accompanied by their parents in a pre-game send-off, before the locals defeated the Bobcats 90-74.
Roth led the way, with 21 points for Victoria, which had already been eliminated prior to this weekend play. Theil and Justin Kinnear added 13 each.
Twitter/tc_vicsports
