SAIT pulls away from Queens late
Trojans 71 Queens 52
CALGARY — For 30 minutes the RDC Queens managed to hang with one of the top women’s basketball teams in the country, but for the second night in a row they faded down the stretch.
The Queens were within 10 points of the SAIT Trojans, who have not lost this season, but wound up on the short end of a 71-52 score on Saturday.
“I thought defensively we played well against this team, we forced them to keep their starters on,” said Queens head coach Dawn Smyth. “I was really happy with what the girls were able to do and I thought it was a good preparation for us these last couple of games to play this way against the second place team in the country.”
The Queens biggest problem on Saturday was burying their chances.
They managed to get to the free throw line 27 but managed to shoot just 34 per cent, sinking just eight freebies — a stat that’s not going to cut it in the Alberta Colleges Women’s Basketball League.
“That’s not good enough for a college basketball team,” said Smyth, whose team only made it to the charity stripe 21 times in Fridays 81-50 loss. “We gave them too many second opportunities, we gave them 29 offensive rebounds where we only got nine. It’s just too many opportunities for them to score. Then when we were given opportunities, for example from the free throw line, we’re not capitalizing on it, so that was unfortunate.”
The Queens were led by Courtney Loyek with 12 points and Kaitlyn Olsen who scored 10 points, five rebounds and four assists.
The Queens will have a chance to make a jump in the standings next weekend when they play Lethbridge who is just four points ahead of them
“It’s a big weekend for us,” said Smyth. “It should be a really competitive game. I think Lethbridge has really improved in the second half (of the season), so I think it’s a real big opportunity. We need some combination with us winning in order to make the playoffs.”
Trojans 98 Kings 76
The Kings lost their composure in the second half and it told on the scoresheet.
“We were up by three at the half, then in the second half we let the referees get to us and several guys picked up technical fouls which seemed to switch the momentum,” explained Kings head coach Stef Labrecque. “Basically we weren’t committed to our game plan and SAIT did what they had to do and wanted to do and we didn’t do what we were supposed to do.”
Saturday’s loss, coupled with their 76-70 loss to the Trojans at home Friday, left the Kings in a battle for fourth place in the South Division. The Kings are 6-8 with SAIT now solidly in third place at 8-6.
“We could have sealed up third place, now we’re in jeopardy of not making the playoffs as our schedule doesn’t get any easier,” said Labrecque.
Adam Shaw led RDC with 22 points and six rebounds while Eric Bakker added 18 points and 10 boards.
“Eric didn’t play great Friday, but really responded tonight, which was a positive,” said Labrecque.
The RDC teams host Lethbridge next weekend with the women tipping off Friday at 6 p.m. and Saturday at 1 p.m.
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