Playing their first home games in more than two months, the VIU women showed off their capabilities on the court.
Vancouver Island University’s women’s basketball team (14-0) maintained its perfect record in PacWest play with wins over the Douglas Royals and Langara Falcons on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
The Mariners women flushed the Royals by a 77-57 score on Friday night, then grounded the Falcons 65-35 the following afternoon.
M’s forward Shayna Worthington had a strong and consistent weekend, leading her team in scoring and rebounding both games with 25 points and nine boards in both outings. Jocelyn Jones and Amanda Tapia scored 14 points apiece on Friday and Jones had 18 on Saturday.
In men’s action, VIU (10-4) defeated Douglas 91-73 but was stopped 89-74 the next day by Langara, the nation’s top-ranked team.
“At every position they’re a little bigger than us. It makes all our stuff difficult…” said Matt Kuzminski, M’s coach. “For us to beat them it’s going to take close to our best game, close to our perfect game.”
VIU made it close at times, but in crunch time Langara was impenetrable on defence and fluid on offence.
“I’m happy with how hard the guys played and the effort they played with, but we didn’t do enough things to get the job done,” Kuzminski said.
Brandon Jones scored 23 points to lead the Mariners in that one and Harrison Stupich scored 18. In the previous day’s victory, Stupich led the way with 24 pints and nine rebounds, Clayton Billett scored 17 points and Seth Goodman had 14.
COURT SHORTS … To see a photo from Saturday’s men’s basketball game, please pick up Tuesday’s print issue of the News Bulletin … VIU’s basketball teams are on the road Friday (Jan. 31) and Saturday, taking on Kwantlen and Columbia Bible College, respectively.
sports@nanaimobulletin.com
