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Olds no match for RDC hoopsters

Kings and Queens post wins

Queens 82 Broncos 72

One of the RDC Queens downfalls in the past has been a poor effort coming out of the dressing room after halftime.

That’s something head coach Ken King has been spending a lot of time trying to correct and if Friday’s performance means anything the Queens are headed in the right direction.

The Queens outscored the Olds Broncos 29-17 in the third quarter to take a nine point lead and never looked back as they recorded an 82-72 Alberta Colleges Women’s Basketball League victory at RDC.

“We’ve been putting a lot of emphasis on that this week,” said King. “We worked on specific ways of coming out ready to play. We’d have breaks, stop practice in the middle of a drill so that we had to come back out, warm up again and be ready and it showed up in the third quarter.”

The came out strong and twice held 10 point leads before giving them back. The teams were tied 19-19 after the first quarter with Olds leading 37-34 at the half.

“We were trying to do something there that wasn’t as effective as I hoped. I’ll take the hit for that, but we have to execute better and everyo0ne has to know what we can do,” said King, who substituted freely in the second quarter, which seemed to take some momentum away.

Overall the RDC defence was solid, especially in the third quarter creating a number of turnovers.

“The defence that hurt us in the second quarter, when we were playing man, was the exact same defence we used in the third quarter that brought us back and changed the game,” added King.

Still it was the Queens offence and rebounding that picked up the pace and ultimately led to victory.

Kiana Mintz, who transferred in from Olds this season, led the Queens with 22 points, nine rebounds and three steals. Eva Bonde had 16 points and six boards and Emily White, who was battling a touch of the flu, had 16 points and nine rebounds.

Brianna Scott led the Broncos with 29 points while Sierra Harty added 17 and Alice-Fay Pitts 12.

Kings 98 Broncos 90

The Kings started slow, and in fact never did find a good rhythm on offence until the second half. They trailed 24-20 and 43-40 after the first two quarters, The third quarter they started to control the boards and found their offence and led 71-64 after 30 minutes and on their way to a 98-90 victory.

“We had to dig ourselves out of a hole in that first quarter and to the guys credit they kept grinding away and once we took the lead we never relinquished it,” said Kings head coach Clayton Pottinger. “At times you need to win gritty games and that was a good example of one.”

What hurt the Kings was star guard Ian Tevis never found his stroke in the first half and managing just three points. He finished with 14.

Pottinger was still disappointed with the team defence at times.

“We still make some mistakes which the other team capitalized on. We gave up 90 points. That’s what happens when you have spurts when you’re not watching what you’re doing.”

Pottinger did admit there’s more top scorers in the ACAC than in the past.

“And they play different positions, not just guards, which changes things,” he said. “But there’s still things we have to correct, and we will continue to work on them. Mind you if we were good and perfect right now we’d have a problem.”

The Broncos have an athletic team, but lack depth with only nine players dressed, and size.

“We had an advantage inside and rebounding in the second half was a difference in the game,” said Pottinger.

Matt Matear was the RDC player of the game with 17 points and 18 rebounds while Kai Greene had 17 points, Khurram Sultan 15, Shayne Stumpf 15 points and 13 rebounds and Anthony Robbs 11 points. Cody Bouchard had 25 points, Jamelle Davis 18 and Anthony Heintzman 17 for Olds.

RDC is at home again tonight as they host St. Mary’s Lightning of Calgary. Women tip off at 6 p.m., followed by the men.

Danny Rode is a retired Advocate reporter who can be reached at drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com. His work can also be seen at Danny’s blog at rdcathletics.ca.