Box Score The University of Lethbridge Pronghorns women's basketball team's winning streak has fallen one game shy of double digits.
The University of Fraser Valley Cascades, in the meantime, scored a little payback following a 64-48 win in Canada West play Saturday night at the 1st Choice Savings Centre.
The loss snaps the Horns winning clip at nine games and puts them at 10-4, while the Cascades avenge a close 73-67 loss Friday night to earn the weekend split and improve to 10-2.
In the rematch Saturday, the Cascades were quick out of the gate and never trailed throughout, opening up a 20-point 35-15 lead with 3:58 left in the first half en route to the win.
"Good teams want to set a tone and that's a good team, that's a championship competitor," said Pronghorns head coach Dave Waknuk. "We know as a top-10 team they're going to come motivated. We talked about punching first and setting the tone and they set the tone. They came out really aggressive, got off to a great start and established their physicality. We knew it was coming and for me, we got that great win (Friday) night and this is a learning game and now you're going to see in this league how good teams come back. We have to put two together and that's the lesson we got. But a lot of credit goes to them, that's a good basketball team. They're highly ranked for a reason and they came and showed that tonight."
In Saturday's rematch, the Cascades jumped out to a quick 10-0 lead and an 18-7 lead after the first quarter.
"They established their inside game," said Waknuk of nationally ninth-ranked UFV. "I think we're always on the small side and we were able to use our athleticism and ball pressure them into mistakes (Friday). Tonight, they established their play inside. They went inside and they made us pay in the paint. They found a lot of looks and started getting shots. They really established their inside game."
Pronghorns forward Tobore Okome noted a Cascades team that was looking for a little payback on Saturday.
"They definitely took the loss to heart," said the fourth-year forward. "I think you could tell right off the bat. They're a very physical team and they're much bigger than us. So it was about punching first and unfortunately, we didn't have the best start, but it's a learning curve for us and (it's) just going to go up from here."
The Pronghorns were able to pull it to 15 with a little over three minutes to go, trailing 58-43.
"I think the best thing for us is we battled in the second half, we didn't quit and ended up winning the second half, points-wise," said Waknuk. "We showed a lot of heart. The ball wasn't going into the basket. A credit to their defence and their ball pressure. Their inside presence affected our shots, but we didn't quit and we're playing good ball."
Cascades head coach Al Tuchscherer was pleased with his team's rebound Saturday and a win that allows them to head home with a split and their 10th win of the season.
"Kudos to Lethbridge, they gave us all sorts of challenges all weekend," he said. "Obviously, taking (Friday's) game, we talked about how we wanted to respond to that tonight and I'm really proud of how the girls came out and just played with a lot of intensity and determination tonight. I thought that was great.
"I wasn't super happy with the second half (Saturday). I thought Lethbridge made a push at the end."
A focus on an interior game and their size advantage paid off for the Cascades on Saturday.
"(Friday) I thought we were a little too perimeter oriented and we really made a conscious effort to get the ball inside and use our size advantage," said Tuchscherer. "We don't really have a size advantage against them with our guard play, but we do with our interior play and it paid off."
The loss brings the Pronghorns' nine-game winning streak to an end, their last loss coming Nov. 11 in a 70-68 loss to UBC Okanagan.
"This loss at the end of the weekend, with the win at the end of the weekend it would be a little more positive," said Waknuk. "We have to realize we split with a very good team and we're playing good basketball. We've only lost two games in the last while. We can't hang our heads. We have to move forward and we have to learn and that's the challenge here. It's a good lesson of what great teams look like and what we have to do to become a great team."
The Horns head to Edmonton Friday and Saturday to face the Griffins, but Waknuk said preparations continue beyond this weekend.
"I think at this time of year it's the big picture with short-term focus," he said. "We still want to clean up some turnovers and get better on offence and we want to be more efficient on defence. Yes, the opponent is MacEwan next week, but we're going to work on these things over the next three weeks before the playoffs. We just want to keep building toward the bigger picture. So it's not specific for the next weekend, it's more as a team, can we get better this week, better than last week and keep going?
The winning streak is over, but Okome said the post game talk was noting the season's accomplishments thus far.
"It's just using this as a learning curve because we're going to play difficult teams and we have to learn how to play through that physicality because we are a small team."
In the thick of a playoff race, Okome said this is a fun time to be a Pronghorn.
"I think that's why we enjoy playing so much and that's why we're winning, because we're having so much fun," she said. "We love playing together and every time we're having fun on the court is when we're doing well."
