Rachel Villari (UBC Athletics)
VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds women's basketball team started the year off with a comeback 57-45 win over the visiting UBC Okanagan Heat Friday at War Memorial Gymnasium.
The first of five non-conference games for the Blue and Gold, the game against UBCO was the first opportunity for the team to get into game shape as they prepare for Canada West action, which starts in early October.
Fifth-year T-Birds guard Diana Lee (North Vancouver) controlled the ball all evening, putting up 10 points to go along with six assists. Those six assists were not only a game high, they matched the total posted by the entire UBCO roster. In the paint, the forward duo of Kara Spotton (Fort Collins, Colo.) and Adrienne Parkin (Vancouver) were excellent, with Spotton putting up a game-high 16 points and seven rebounds, while Parkin added 12 points of her own, along with eight boards.
However, the rust of a long offseason was evident for both squads in the opening 20 minutes, as neither team could really sink into a rhythm or find the basket with any consistency. The two sides went into halftime with the Heat on top by a margin of 20-15.
For her part, UBC head coach Deb Huband chalked up the slow start to a combination of nerves, and actually playing an opponent off the practice court for the first time in months.
"I think everyone was excited to play," she said. "But maybe we didn't have the focus that we needed to [in the first half]. We were just running up and down the court – it was like a track meet, not a basketball game. At this early in the season I think it's just an adjustment, after kind of forgetting what it's like to play that physical style of basketball. It took us the first half to kind of remember that."
Luckily for UBC, the game's main storyline didn't end up being how it started, but the way in which it ended.
UBC more than matched their first half scoring in the third quarter, putting 23 on the board. Lee picked up eight points of her own, showing some impressive range with a couple of very long twos. One moment in particular also showed off Lee's passing prowess, as, midway through the third frame, the guard delivered an absolute dime from half-court, finding Spotton in the paint amidst a swarm of UBCO defenders. The forward did well to adjust and bank it off the glass for the bucket.
The T-Birds climbed out of their halftime deficit with authority in the third, and had the lead going into the fourth stanza, up 38-37.
Spotton stole the show in the final frame, scoring 10 points in just eight minutes of action. The T-Birds closed out the contest with a 12-2 run in the last six minutes, and ended up on the right side of a 57-45 final score.
When discussing the stark contrast between the first and second halves, Huband remarks how effective her veteran players were, both on and off the court.
"I thought that we could really look to our veterans at this time of year," Huband said. "We looked to their leadership to kind of set the tone and give us a sense of confidence. We really expect that our fourth- and fifth-year girls will be the ones that we can rely on for the intensity and execution, and we waited for a while, but in the second half they really started to dig in and bring that for us."
The T-Birds will next square off against the Guelph Gryphons at the Ryerson Darcel Wright Memorial Classic in Toronto on October 16.
IMAGE CREDIT: Rich Lam/UBC Thunderbirds