Saturday night at the Northern Sport Centre, the short-staffed UNBC Timberwolves women (2-12) put forth another commendable effort in an 81-65 setback to the red-hot UBC Thunderbirds (14-2). Olivia Weekes (19), Mona Berlitz (18) and Cerys Merton (16) combined for 53 points and defensively the T-Birds forced 31 turnovers in the victory – Their 10th in a row. UNBC countered with a 14-point, 15 rebound double-double effort from Svetlana Boykova along with double-digit efforts from Rebecca Landry (13), Viktoriia Filatova (11) and Amrit Manak (13).
UBC led 27-19 after the opening 10. Cerys Merton had 11 of the first 25 points for UBC. She was three-for-three from deep and was four-of-five from the field. Defensively she added four steals and a rebound. Mona Berlitz (5) and Olivia Weekes (6) also combined for 11 for UBC. On the flip side, Rebecca Landry had a strong start for UBC, notching six points on three-of-four shooting. Her first bucket of the night was impressive as she took a pass mid-court, used her speed to out-run a pair of UBC defenders, and charged the hoop hard before going off the glass and in. Amrit Manak added five first quarter points – three of which came off a catch-and-shoot elbow trey. Both teams had nine first-quarter field goals and UNBC out-rebounded UBC 12-7.
Sveta Boykova had four of the first eight points of the second quarter for UNBC. In typical Sveta fashion, none of her points came easy, but the third-year Russian withstood some tough defense in the paint and converted on a pair of tough shots. Rebecca Landry added five more points to her ledger as well in the second, and led all TWolves with 11 at the break. After Jade Huynh hit a three for UBC, Amrit Manak answered with her second triple of the night, moving UBC back to within six at 37-31. But for the final half of the second quarter, UBC held UNBC to just five points while potting 13 of their own. At half, UBC led 50-36 on the strength of six second quarter points from Jade Hynh, five from Mona Berlitz and another three from Cerys Merton which gave her 14-points at half and a new single-game career high. At half the TWolves were shooting 15-of-29 (51.7 percent) but were trailing the turnover battle 14-3.
UNBC began the third on a 12-7 run to momentarily push the UBC lead back to single-digits. Sveta Boykova chimed in with seven points while Viktoriia Filatova supplied an early three and a deep two. Mona Berlitz supplied six of the eventual 15 UBC points in the third quarter while Cerys Merton added a pair of successful free-throws, pushing her totals to 16 which matched Berlitz for the game-high through three. Through 30 minutes, UBC led 65-50 and had a +18 turnover differential.
The T-Birds outscored UNBC 16-15 in the final 10. Olivia Weekes had a big final quarter for UBC, potting 10 points on four-of-six. Amrit Manak, Rebecca Landry and Viktoriia Filatova all supplied buckets in the opening two minutes and change for UNBC to start the fourth quarter, and down the stretch Halle Tiessen snagged three consecutive – the first a nifty layup, the second a deep elbow two, and the third another layup, which pushed the TWolves back to within 13.
When the horn sounded, the score showed 81-65 for UBC, but it was an effort that UNBC and Sergey Shchepotkin could be proud of. The TWolves, with only eight available players shot 27-for-54 (50 percent) from the field and out-rebounded UBC 44-30.
With 14 points, 15 rebounds, six assists, one block and one steal, Sveta Boykova captured Mr. Mike’s Player of the Game honours for UNBC who will now set their sights on a road-trip to Kamloops next weekend for a double-header with TRU.