The University of Winnipeg Wesmen lived up to their first place position in the Canada West women's basketball league on Friday (Jan 13). The Wesmen won their 12^th game of the year as they downed the host Thompson Rivers University WolfPack 78-49. The game was played on the Warner Rentals court at the Tournament Capital Centre.

SYNOPSIS

The WolfPack did outscore the Wesmen 18-17 in the second quarter but trailed 39-31 at the half as they dropped their fifth straight game.  

Winnipeg had four players in double figures led by Antoinette Miller (4^th year, guard, Phoenix, AZ) with 21 points.  TRU's top gunner was Michelle Bos (3^rd year, forward, Surrey, BC) with 17 points and 10 rebounds.

VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS:

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KEY STATS:

Winnipeg:

Megan Noonan: 25 points, 3 assists, 3 steals in 26 minutes

Antoinette Miller: 21 points, 5 rebounds (3 on def), 7 assists, 3 steals in 25 minutes

Lena Wenke: 12 points, 2 rebounds (one either end) 19 minutes

Faith Hezekiah:  10 points, 6 rebounds (4 on def) 2 assists, 2 blocks, 3 steals  in 26 minutes

Taylor Thorkelsson: 5 points, 5 rebounds (4 on def), 2 blocks, 2 steals in 23 minutes

Thompson Rivers :

Michelle Bos: 17 points, 10 rebounds (5 either end), 3 assits, 1 block, 1 steal in 31 minutes

Chelsey Hoey: 9 points, 9 rebounds (8 on def), 1 steal in 29 minutes

Leilani Carney: 10 points, 1 rebound, 1 steal in 27 minutes

 Turnovers:

TRU     26     WINNIPEG 14

Steals:

Winnipeg 13   TRU  9 

Score by Periods:

Winnipeg    22   17   19    15    73

TRU              18   18  10      8    43

RECORD:

Winnipeg 12-1      TRU 2-11

QUOTES:

TRU Assistant Coach Chuck Ferguson:

"I thought in the first half we made a game of it. We were competing on the glass and the turnovers weren't as bad. The second half, we took our foot off the gas and got pretty careless with the ball. They had 13 steals as well. Lose the rebounding game on both ends of the floor, turnover the ball 26 times and let them take it 13, it is pretty tough to win.

On play of Michelle Bos :

"She was doing almost all herself offensively in the first half. A double double for her (17 points, 10 rebounds), that is a phenomenal result from her. That's what we need from her. She is veteran leadership. We need other players to step up and do their jobs too. Tonight, we didn't do that as a team. We had some individual hot spots. I thought Chelsey (Hoey, 2^nd year, forward, Parksville, BC) did a good job on the defensive end but we really struggled on the offensive end in the second half. Our shooting percentage wasn't there. We got 58 shots. That's enough to win but pretty tough when you aren't hitting them."

Winnipeg head coach Tanya McKay (21 st season)

On the difference in the game:

"In the first half, Thompson got a lot of great shots. I thought we kept losing them on their shots. In the second half they weren't hitting them. That helped us. When they were taking their long shots it gave us time to transition. We also did a better job in the second half with pressuring them.  A few turnovers led to a few easy scores for us.  They battled but their shots weren't falling in the second half."

On which players on the Wesmen impressed her:

"I thought Ant and Megan did a good job as a duo in keeping the pressure up, getting good looks and being vocal on telling our group to be tough on defense. The two of them didn't play in the fourth quarter but I thought the two of them did a great job on the bench keeping kids in the game…talking on the floor and keeping our kids in the game"

UP NEXT: the two teams square off again tomorrow (Jan 14) on the Warner Rentals Court at the Tournament Capital Centre. Tip off will be 5 pm.  You can see the game on a pay per view basis by logging onto WWW.CanadawestTV.  The pre-game show will be on the air around 4:45 pm.

Both the Wesmen and the WolfPack have a bye next weekend (Jan 21-22). TRU then hits the road for games January 27^th and 28^th at the University of Fraser Valley against the Cascades.

The Wesmen visit the MacEwan University Griffins in Edmonton, Alberta (Jan 27-28).

OF NOTE:

The "TRU Bookstore/McDonalds Leader of the Pack" Player of the game was Hoey . This was "Bell Let's Talk"about mental illness awareness night.  Fans were given temporary tattoos and thundersticks along with 'thought bubbles' for them to write down a message about mental illness and post a selfie.

Winnipeg's Taylor Thorkelsson has a tie to Thompson Rivers. Her younger sister Kelsey was a first year member of the WolfPack women's soccer team this fall.