The Peak

Women's BBall : Clan finish season strong

By Chad Klassen

In an important home-and-home weekend series, the SFU women’s basketball team secured home-court advantage throughout the Pacific Division playoffs with two victories over the Trinity Western University (TWU) Spartans last Friday and Saturday, moving to 21-1 on the season.

In the latter of the two contests, which was held at SFU’s West Gym, the Clan, despite being held scoreless for almost five minutes and finding themselves behind 17-2 in the first, showed their resilience as the CIS’s first-ranked team and roared back to win convincingly, 82-49.

“They’re pretty good about understanding that they shouldn’t do that, but there are a lot of obstacles that get in the way,” said head coach Bruce Langford regarding the team’s slow starts. “We try to keep them straight and narrow, and keep them realizing that they can be pretty bad. We can use things like 17-2 starts to show that if we’re not on our game, that it doesn’t take long for [the opposition] to take advantage.”

SFU climbed its way back into the game to retake the lead in the opening quarter after Langford made a couple substitutions that sparked a 20-4 run. Lisa Tindle hit a three-point to end the first and had the Clan leading 23-22 — their first lead of the night.

“[The slow start’s] only a learning lesson if doesn’t happen again. If it happens again, we didn’t learn much from it. We’re hoping it will be,” added Langford.

The women then put it in overdrive and dominated both the second and third quarters to gain control. The team outscored TWU 15-8 in the second to take a 38-30 advantage into the halftime break.

The game was blown wide open in the second half, as the Clan led by as much as 17 points in the third quarter (58-41). Their lead was bumped to 35 points before eventually finishing off the Spartans with a convincing 82-49 victory at home.

In the win, Kate Hole was the team’s leading scorer with 20 points, while Robyn Buna and Matteke Hutzler each added 13 points. Lisa Tindle and Laurelle Weigl also contributed to the win with 12 points each, as the Clan reached the ultimate plateau of balanced scoring, which is a trait that will be largely beneficial in the playoffs.

“We’re showing at times, we had a quarter [against TWU last Saturday] where we had 34 points. It was a brilliant quarter. We had a [20-4] run in the last five minutes of the first quarter [in the same contest]. So I think that we’ve had some good moments, but we’re coming to a certain point where teams are doing a lot to change things and be able to beat us. We haven’t changed a lot because what we’ve been doing has been somewhat successful,” Langford noted on the women’s performance heading into the playoffs.

In the first contest, on Friday, the unranked Spartans got off to another quick start against the CIS’s first-ranked Clan. But SFU was too much in the end, capturing the 90-58 blowout on the road in the Fraser Valley.

After the two schools traded baskets through much of the first quarter, keeping the score tied 16-16, TWU continued to keep pace into the second, taking a 24-23 lead at one point before SFU started to take back control of the game. Before halftime, the team engineered a 13-4 run to take a 36-28 lead over the Spartans and entered the locker room feeling better about their performance in the first half.
SFU came out of halftime with some momentum and subsequently blew the game open in the third quarter, outscoring TWU 34-13 to extend their stranglehold on the game to 70-41 after three.

The Spartans played with the Clan in the final frame, as the two schools exchanged baskets like the opening quarter, but the deficit was too much to overcome for TWU, as SFU held on to take the 90-58 win.

Laurelle Weigl was a standout for SFU with 23 points and eight rebounds, while Robyn Buna added 20 points, three steals, and two rebounds to lead the charge for the Clan. The one strength that the Clan can take into the post-season is the balanced scoring that has kept opponents on their heels all season long, not being able to focus on just one threat.

Starters and players off the bench have all contributed to SFU’s success with several double-digit scoring nights that have helped the team post a 22-1 record.

“I think we’ve had several people that have been leaders, at different times of the season. Early in the season, Courtney Gerwing’s play led people just with the example of how hard she was working and how much success she was having. That might have start to wane a little, then Lani [Gibbons] came on strong, and Kate Hole’s been good in the post and on the boards [rebounding]. Lisa Tindle, in a few games, has been able to come in and change things when we were not off to the best of starts. So it’s been a shared load with many players.”

“It helps that on any given night, different people can step up and are used to scoring, given what the other team might want to do with us. I think that’s a huge advantage.” The women’s final game of the season took place on Friday against these same Spartans, as they prepare to host the Pacific Division playoffs starting February 15 (Friday). Check out athletics.sfu.ca for the score and game recap.

See Champs on page 24 for a look at the Clan’s chances to repeat and possible challenges from other Canada West schools.