VANCOUVER - The UBC Thunderbirds punched their tickets to the Canada West Final Four on Saturday, downing the Alberta Pandas 82-71 to sweep the best-of-three quarterfinal series at War Memorial Gym.
The T-Birds trailed by a point at halftime and the Pandas stretched the advantage to four points early in the third until an injury to
Zara Huntley seemed to spark the home side.
Huntley took an elbow to the neck during an offensive possession and remained down on the court while the Pandas took the ball the other way and earned two foul shots. Those shots made it a 44-40 game for Alberta, but the T-Birds then went on a 17-4 run to finish the quarter, and never let go of the lead.
"Any time you see one of your all-star players go down it certainly draws attention and people are going to want to rally around that and step up their game," UBC coach
Deb Huband said of the Huntley injury.
Huntley did return for the fourth quarter and finished the game with 10 points in limited minutes.
Kristen Hughes had a huge second half for the T-Birds, pouring in 16 of her 21 points after the break including a 4-6 performance from behind the arc.
"Kristen came up big again hitting some key shots and just wanting the ball and having great leadership on the court," Huband said. "She's been steady and getting better and better. She plays the point for us which is not a natural position for her, but it looks like it is now because she's got great leadership and really shooting the ball well."''
Hughes scored 11 in the fourth, including two rally-killing three pointers to hold the Pandas off as they made a late push.
But in the first half,
Kris Young seemed to be the only T-Bird getting shots to drop. After setting a UBC record with 12 assists in game one, she went into scoring mode on Saturday and dropped 18 of her game-high 26 points in the first half to keep the 'Birds afloat when the rest of the offence wasn't connecting.
"We were struggling to score and they were taking away some of the looks we had the other day, so Kris decided she was going to be more of a scorer today," Huband said. "That's the versatility of her game. She can kind of flip from one to the other depending on what we need."
Young filled up the stats sheet nicely with eight rebounds, five assists, two blocks and four steals.
Five Pandas scored in double digits, led by Nicole Clarke's 17 points.
Anneka Bakker and Kelly Lyons both played tough physical defence in the post and found the scoring touch late in the game, combining for 17 of Alberta's 23 fourth quarter points, but it was too little too late.
Bakker finished with 12 points and eight rebounds, while Lyons had 11 points and four steals.
The loss ends Alberta's season, while UBC will move on to the Canada West Final Four next weekend, set to be hosted by undefeated No. 1 Regina barring a major upset. The Cougars are up 1-0 in their quarterfinal series and are set for game two later tonight.
The Canada West champion automatically qualifies for the CIS nationals, which will be hosted by the University of Calgary from March 17 to 19.
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