VANCOUVER - Despite a valiant fourth quarter comeback the UBC Thunderbirds dropped a two-point road decision for the second consecutive night, falling 51-49 to the MRU Cougars in a defensive duel Saturday evening at Kenyon Court. The T-Birds suffered their first two losses of the Canada West campaign during the weekend series while with back-to-back victories the Cougars improve to .500 with a 3-3 record. 

Saturday's rematch produced a mix of at time strong defence but also poor shooting from both teams in the low scoring affair, the T-Birds shot just 28 percent from the field while the Cougars were marginally better in managing a field goal reading of 32 percent. That said, arguable the difference in the game and where UBC didn't do themselves any favors was a lack of proficiency from the free throw line in shooting just 50 percent from the stripe, converting on just nine of 18 attempts.

Even though there was a lack of scoring the game didn't lack for drama in the end as the resilient visitors who found themselves starring down a 14 point deficit and trailing 42-28 by the end of the third quarter, completely flipped the script. The 'Birds bared down on defence and also executing on the offensive end to score 21 points while limiting MRU to just 9 points but they ran out of time in closing the gap to within two points by the final horn.



For UBC, Olivia Weekes scored a team high 10 points while adding 11 rebounds to record a double-double, Sara Toneguzzi chipped in with nine points while Hailey Counsell and Mona Berlitz contributed eight points each. Kiara Ker scored a game-high 13 points for MRU while Maddison Hooper and Jamie Lalor added 11 and nine points respectively. On the defensive end Jenessa Ramsoomair was a standout in matching Weekes' 11 game high rebounds to make life difficult for the blue and gold.



Lalor was named player of the game for Mount Royal tonight after finishing the night with nine points, five rebounds, five assists, two steals and a block, saying "we just tightened up our defence, we took some great shots and we just really made sure we were rebounding aggressively the whole entire time. I think that was a big game changer for us."

She continued on to say  "we've been working super hard for this so getting this win, it's super big and we are just excited to keep going."

Looking to next weekend the Cougars hit the road for a weekend series at the University of Victoria while the T-Birds look forward to returning to home court for the first time in three-weeks when they host the Alberta Pandas for back-to-back games, Friday December, 2nd, with a 5:00 p.m. PT. tip off and Saturday December, 3rd beginning at 4:00 p.m. PT. at the historic War Memorial Gym.