VANCOUVER – Despite a sluggish start and trailing until the fourth quarter, the UBC Thunderbirds pulled out a thrilling 60-59 win over the visiting Fraser Valley Cascades Friday night at War Memorial Gymnasium for their first victory of the season.
Scoring six of her team-leading 19 points in the final quarter,
Kate Johnson drained a long-range jumper with 35 seconds on the clock to put the 'Birds (1-2) in front for good as they battled back from a 14-point first-quarter deficit.
"I think the biggest thing for us is, obviously we've been on the other end of some pretty close battles lately and I think the difference for us is finally we were able to pull it out," said UBC Head Coach
Erin McAleenan who earned her first win with the T-Birds. "I thought our discipline and belief in each other in terms of just some tough gritty defensive stops, turning them over, even though our offence wasn't overly pretty again, we made up for it in the defensive end. I think after a super slow, rough start, I'm just super proud of everybody on the team that came in and contributed and put us back in position to be able to win it."
Leading that defensive effort was Johnson, who finished the game with five defensive rebounds and a game-leading three steals.
"She's a phenomenal athlete, and she just has such great instincts," said McAleenan of her veteran guard. "I think when we were unable to find a way, she used her quickness at the offensive end to try to find a way to get into the paint. More importantly, her defensive steals were huge extra possessions for us. She has lots of good experience with us so as one of the veteran players, that really showed down the stretch today."
The Cascades (2-1) started the game on fire, staking out a 14-0 lead.
A steal by
Azalya Forstbauer led to UBC's first points of the game on a
Katrina Fink layup. Forstbauer followed up with a bucket of her own to help spurn an 11-2 T-Birds run to get the home team back in the game.
UBC was also able to force the Cascades into some early foul trouble and a pair of Forstbauer free throws got the home side within three points. But one of Maddy Gobeil's four three-pointers in the quarter helped Fraser Valley take a 19-14 lead into the second frame.
Gobeil led all players Friday night with 20 points, but was held to just two in the second half after her explosive start.
The T-Birds stayed within striking distance, tying the game 29-29 late in the second quarter on a
Katrina Fink breakaway layup. The Cascades led 32-31 at halftime.
Turnovers plagued both teams in the second half, but the Cascades suffered the worst of it, largely thanks to Johnson's timely steals.
UFV led by just two points heading into the final quarter when UBC took their first lead of the night just moments in when a
Teigan Manson three-pointer put the T-Birds ahead 46-45.
An 8-3 Cascades run put the visitors up by four and it looked like the more experienced team might start pulling away. But the resilient T-Birds refused to go away, eventually tying the game 58-58.
Back down by a single point with less than a minute on the clock, UBC again looked to Johnson who converted on the jumper for what proved to be the game winning basket.
"I hope for us we see that not only after the win tonight but some close games against some good teams last weekend, that we're right there with some of the top teams," added McAleenan. "But we got to put ourselves in a better position by coming out ready to play so that we can play more consistently for 40 minutes."
The T-Birds will look to get to .500 in Saturday's rematch with the Cascades.
Tipoff at War Memorial Gym is 5:00 p.m. PT. Ticket are available free of charge,
but must be reserved in advance. The game will also be streamed live on
Canada West TV.
