UFV basketball teams managed one win out of four tries in games against the highly ranked Calgary Dinos last week.
A red-hot shooting performance from Sydney Williams sparked the University of the Fraser Valley women’s basketball team to a 69-60 victory over the Calgary Dinos on the road on Jan. 13.
Williams, the Cascades’ third-year guard, swished seven three-pointers, accounting for all of her game-high 21 points from beyond the arc and enabling the Cascades to earn a weekend split in Calgary.
The Dinos had won the opener of the two-game set on Thursday by a nearly identical score (69-59), and the two teams emerged from the series with matching 8-4 records, tied for fifth in Canada West.
“Syd was fantastic tonight at both ends of the floor,” Cascades head coach Al Tuchscherer said. “We gave her the task of defending (Dinos leading scorer) Brianna Ghali, and I thought she did a great job of slowing her down in transition. And then, she had one of those flashback Syd games where she had a lot of confidence in her shot and hit some huge ones for us.”
The win came off a 69-59 loss to the Dinos on Jan. 12 that saw Calgary outscore UFV 33-15 in the third quarter to earn the win.
Guard Sara Simovic had a team-high 14 points in a losing cause.
The women now have a record of eight wins and four losses after the split in Calgary. The team’s record stands at eight wins and four losses, and they’re tied for fifth in the Canada West.
The men’s team battled the No. 5 ranked Dinos, and dropped a pair of games on Jan. 12 and 13.
The Cascades trailed 43-37 at the half, but the Dinos took over in the third and fourth quarters on Jan. 12 to win 106-68.
Denver Sparks-Guest scored a team-high 15 points, while Riley Braich notched a career-high 14 points.
UFV had a much better effort on Jan. 13, and trailed 88-87 with 32 seconds left in the game, but couldn’t get any closer, falling 92-87.
Manny Dulay racked up a game-high 18 points and seven rebounds, while Anthony Gilchrist scored 14 points.
The men’s record drops to five wins and seven losses, and they sit tied for 11th place in the Canada West.
The teams head back to Alberta for games on Friday and Saturday against the University of Alberta.
They return home on Jan. 27 and 28 for games against the TRU WolfPack.
