The UBC Thunderbirds closed out the pre-season with a commanding 80-58 win over the Memorial Sea-Hawks at War Memorial Gym on Saturday afternoon.
The T-Birds owned the play for most of the game, setting the tone early with strong performances from
Alex Vieweg and
Leigh Stansfield. Vieweg finished with a team-high 13 points and nine rebounds while the second-year Stansfield had 10 points and five boards.
Despite overwhelming the Sea-Hawks for most of the contest, UBC head coach
Deb Huband saw many flaws in her team's game.
“We had the opportunity to get a lot of people on the floor," explained Huband. “What we hope would happen is that when we sub, we're able to maintain intensity and focus on the detail of what we're trying to do. We kind of let things slip when we made changes today. We didn't hold the intensity for 40 minutes, which is the challenge every time you step on the floor."
UBC had 10 players earn more than 14 minutes of the floor this afternoon and had four players reach double figures.
Fifth-year
Candace Morisset had a good showing in the final pre-season game of her CIS career with 11 points, six assists, and five steals.
Devan Lisson notched 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting and had a team-high seven assists.
The T-Birds move forward into conference play next week with a pre-season record of 3-2. Huband spoke about what exhibition play indicates for her team's imminent regular season.
“We feel better this week than we did last week," said Huband. “There are signs that we could have a solid season ahead of us, but there's still a lot of work to do leading up to league play next week."
The Thunderbirds put in a solid defensive effort, limiting all of the Sea-Hawks to single digits. One of Huband's principal concerns were the 26 turnovers by UBC.
“We need to work on sharpness, chemistry, and limiting our own errors," said Huband. “We're making a lot of errors, partly because it's early in the season, which leads to a lot of turnovers, and we have to make sure we do a better job of protecting the ball when we have possession."
The Thunderbirds will have six days to meet their coach's expectations. UBC opens the regular season on Friday, October 30 at the War Memorial Gym versus Trinity Western.
