VANCOUVER - The No. 3 UBC Thunderbirds pushed their win streak to seven games with an 81-57 over the UBC Okanagan Heat on Friday at War Memorial Gym.
The T-Birds got off to a bit of a sluggish start against the struggling Heat, allowing them to shoot close to 40 per cent from the field in the first half. The visitors also held their own on the glass in the first half, out-rebounding the T-Birds and holding them to just three offensive boards.
Despite the slow start, UBC still took a 12 point lead into halftime, and when the Heat's senior post Krystal Schouten got into foul trouble early in the third quarter things started to open up for the 'Birds. They went on to outscore the Heat 14-4 in the paint in that third quarter with Schouten missing most of the action, and the Heat were held to 29 per cent shooting in the second half.
"In the second half I think we got it going a bit offensively in transition which was nice, but on defence we didn't bring the discipline we wanted for 40 minutes which was a little disappointing," said UBC head coach
Deb Huband. "We had three offensive rebounds at half and ended up with 10, so we were able to focus on some things we wanted to work on after our slow start, but hopefully tomorrow we'll come out with a more complete effort."
Alex Vieweg led the T-Birds with 18 points on six of nine shooting, and she was a menace defensively with four blocks and five steals. The T-Birds, who lead the conference in shot blocking, had eight blocks as a team and were able to force a lot of quick releases out of opposing shooters, particularly in the second half.
Kris Young had 14 points, six assists and six rebounds for UBC, and
Leigh Stansfield also chipped in 14 points and a pair of blocks.
Zara Huntley had eight points and nine rebounds, including five on the offensive glass to help UBC turn things around on the boards.
Ashley Briker led the Heat with 16 points and three assists. Schouten finished with seven points and six rebounds in 25 minutes of action.
UBC, now 11-2 on the year, is in great position to finish first in the Pacific Division after Friday's win. If they can complete the sweep tomorrow against the Heat, they will have at least a two-game lead over second place Fraser Valley heading into their head-to-head match up next weekend in Abbotsford.
The Heat fall to 2-11 with the loss and will look to avoid the sweep when the teams play game two on Saturday at 5 p.m.
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