Prince George/La Quita,Calif (Dan Kinvig) – Women’s Basketball: Timberwolves topple Cascades 68-63
The UNBC Timberwolves denied the University of the Fraser Valley women’s basketball team a chance to clinch the No. 1 overall seed heading into the Canada West playoffs, edging the Cascades 68-63 in Prince George on Thursday evening.
The U SPORTS No. 7-ranked Cascades (15-3) led 37-32 at halftime, but were overwhelmed by foul trouble throughout the second half – they were whistled for 20 fouls over the third and fourth quarters – as the T-Wolves (8-9) rallied to win.
Despite Thursday’s result, the West Division champion Cascades will be seeded No. 2 or 3 when the Canada West playoffs open, depending on what happens in other CW action as the regular season concludes this weekend. The first three rounds of the CW playoff tournament run March 4-6 in Calgary and Lethbridge, and UFV will have a bye to the quarter-finals.
“I think the overall lesson coming out of this game is, we all need to be quite a bit better,” Cascades head coach Al Tuchscherer said afterward. “We need to be ready to play for 40 minutes and fight through adversity and mistakes, and we didn’t do a very good job of that, myself included.
“I don’t think it was a pressure thing at all – I think it was more of, we’ve played this team twice, and we won last night handily without really playing our best game. Where our youth and inexperience show tonight is, we didn’t come out tonight with a real killer instinct. We thought we would be able to just show up and get another W. Good things have been happening all week, so why wouldn’t that continue?”
The Cascades, coming off a 73-60 win over the T-Wolves on Wednesday, struggled early in the rematch, falling behind 11-4 as UNBC leading scorer Alina Shakirova scored five quick points. The visitors got back to within 20-18 at the end of the first quarter, and they pulled ahead in the second as Deanna Tuchscherer caught fire. The sophomore forward poured in nine points in the frame, and UFV led by as many as eight before taking a 37-32 lead into the locker room.
The third quarter proved disastrous for UFV – the T-Wolves opened on a 17-5 run, with Lucy Guan and Rebecca Landry lighting the fuse with three-pointers and Shakirova adding seven points during the surge as UNBC went ahead 49-42.
The Cascades were able to battle back to equalize 50-50 after Deanna Tuchscherer and Natalie Rathler opened the fourth quarter with buckets in the paint. But the final frame was a parade to the free throw line for the T-Wolves, and they re-extended the lead to 62-54. Maddy Gobeil’s three-pointer and Deanna’s and-one layup drew UFV back to within 64-60 with 40 seconds left, but it was too little, too late – UNBC hit its free throws in the dying seconds to seal it.
The Tuchscherer sisters led the way for the Cascades on this night – Deanna finished with 21 points, nine rebounds and three assists, and Julia had 15 points and four boards off the bench. Rathler and Maddy Gobeil added eight points apiece.
Shakirova finished with a team-high 17 points for the T-Wolves, who enjoyed a 31-5 edge in free throw attempts in the second half. Laura Garmendia Garcia scored nine points off the bench, and Svetlana Boykova and Sarah Kuklisin had eight points each for UNBC.
Men’s Golf: Armstrong leads the way for Cascades at The Prestige
A pair of quality rounds from Jacob Armstrong were the highlights for the University of the Fraser Valley men’s golf team at The Prestige Individual Invitational in La Quita, Calif. this week.
The Cascades were facing a talented field of golfers from NCAA Division I powerhouse programs, including LSU, Texas, Washington, Kansas, Princeton, and reigning national champion Pepperdine.
Playing under blustery conditions at Coral Mountain Golf Club, Armstrong was the top Cascade – he carded a one-over 73 in Monday’s opening round and a one-under 71 in Wednesday’s finale, sandwiching an 84 on Tuesday. The wind on Tuesday was extreme, inflating scores across the board – not a single golfer in the field shot under par.
“Jake was awesome this week,” Cascades head coach Aaron Pauls said of Armstrong, who tied for 37th at +12 for the week. “The two rounds – one-over on the first and and one-under the last day – were really solid rounds of golf, which was great to see from Jacob. He plays super-steady golf anyways, even when we’re back home at Chilliwack Golf Club. But it was nice to see him translate that success from Chilliwack to a much harder golf course. He’s beaten guys from really big D1 schools, so he was pretty excited about that and the guys were excited for him.”
THE PRESTIGE INDIVIDUAL INVITATIONAL FULL RESULTS
The rest of the UFV roster struggled on a tough course in windy conditions. Jackson Jacob (+25) was 55th, followed by Jacob Lucki (+28, 58th), Eli Greene (+29, 59th) and Ben Whiton (+47, 62nd).
“I think there were a couple things to take away,” Pauls said. “One is that sometimes you’re going to play more difficult courses than you’re used to, where you get out here and you’re hitting a five-iron into a par 4 rather than a nine-iron, and it requires a different set of skills. It’s eye-opening. You go home and you realize, I may not need this at Chilliwack, but I might need it next time in Palm Springs, so maybe you work harder at that. It’s very clear now that there’s things everyone can work on.
“And then the other piece of it is, I think it’s valuable to play people who are better than you. Maybe they are, maybe they’re not, but this field was far tougher than our normal events. Then we come home, having experienced this, all of a sudden it doesn’t seem like as difficult a task to win. I think it helps leading up to a national championship event, to say, ‘Wow, we could really win this.’”
Up next for the Cascades is the Victoria Vikes Invitational, March 5-7.
