The University of British Columbia Athletics

VANCOUVER – The Saskatchewan Huskies came out on top of another tough defensive battle with UBC on Saturday, beating the Thunderbirds 58-48 to even the series at one game each and force a decisive game three on Sunday.


 
For the second night in a row and third time overall including their regular season showdown, both teams played airtight defence and held each other to well under 40 per cent shooting. But in the end it was Saskatchewan's rebounding prowess that separated the teams, as the Huskies outrebounded UBC 49-30 and grabbed 22 offensive rebounds to 17 defensive rebounds for the T-Birds. That led to a 15-9 advantage in second chance scoring.
 
"I think energy is a big thing, and our execution offensively faltered a bit today," said UBC head coach Deb Huband. "We weren't as focused and disciplined as we need to be on both sides of the ball. Where yesterday we were disciplined for most of the 40 minutes, today that percentage dropped dramatically and that was the difference."
 
Kelsey Trulsrud led the way for Saskatchewan with 13 rebounds and 10 points. Desarae Hogberg had 11 points and seven rebounds off the bench. Dalyce Emmerson narrowly missed out on a second straight double double, with nine points and nine rebounds.
 
Harleen Sidhu led the UBC offence with 17 points, while Kris Young added nine points and 11 rebounds. UBC shot 50 per cent from the floor in the first half before shooting just over 20 in the second to end the night with the same shooting percentage as they had in game one – 34 per cent.
 
"I think we just got outworked in the second half," Huband said. "They won the loose ball battles and they won the rebounding battle. We were a little bit flat-footed and stalled. They upped the energy, and we weren't surprised by it, but we didn't meet it."
 
The T-Birds trailed by just three points heading into the fourth, but the Huskies kicked off the quarter on a 7-0 run to open the lead up to double digits. With such a high premium on scoring in this series, that gave them a pretty comfortable advantage that never looked in danger the rest of the way.
 
UBC did a nice job containing Emmerson in the first half, holding the Canada West's second-leading regular season scorer and leading rebounder to just one point and three boards. Emmerson's first made field goal came with four minutes left in the third quarter.
 
But even with Emmerson held in check, the Huskies dominated the glass all night Saturday. By halftime they had 11 offensive rebounds compared to 11 defensive boards for UBC. At the three quarter mark, the Huskies had a 10-1 advantage in second chance points.
 
The Huskies also managed to outscore the T-Birds 13-7 off turnovers despite actually losing the turnover battle by a significant margin. They coughed it up 19 times to UBC's 13 turnovers.
 
"It's a tough conference and we knew this would be a tough matchup, both being ranked teams," Huband said. "At this time of year you have to be playing your best basketball and you are going to be challenged. It's about battling through resistance, and making sure you win the battles, whether they are defensively, on the boards or whatever. You have to win those battles to win the game."
 
The teams get right back at it for the decisive game three on Sunday at 2 p.m., again at War Memorial Gym. The winner moves on to the Canada West Final Four next week at the University of Alberta, while the loser is knocked out of the playoffs.
 
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