Vernon’s Emily Kanester canned a team-high 15 points as the UBC Okanagan Heat brushed back the Trinity Western Spartans 67-62 in CIS Canada West women’s basketball play Friday night at UBCO gym.
Kanester, a third-year guard, and Kayla McFadden did the heavy lifting for the Heat, who collected their third win of the season, and first of 2014.
McFadden came up with a couple of hustle plays down the stretch, and the Pitt Meadows product drained two of her 14 points to give her team a 61-59 with 2:11 remaining.
Kanester canned a pair of late free throws to put the game on ice. She went 8-for-12 from the line.
Sarah Allison also supplied 14 points and was 4-for-4 from the free-throw line. Rookie Shenelle Tamminen also made all four of her attempts from the charity stripe, finishing with eight points and 28 minutes of floor time.
Meanwhile, Vernon’s Lenai Schmidt, a fifth-year libero, recorded nine dig attempts as UBC Okanagan fell 3-0 (25-9, 25-18, 25-23) to the Spartans in women’s volleyball play Friday night.
The Spartans effectively neutralized the Heat block and applied heavy pressure to the UBC Okanagan back-row. An inability to get a quality first touch had a spillover effect on the Heat offence.
Katie Wuttunee (3rd year, North Vancouver) and Katy Klomps (3rd year, Surrey) were only able to muster 3.5 total blocks, and the exposed Heat back-row had difficulty slowing the Spartan offence. Schmidt supporting back-row cast struggled to get quality passes off to setter Emily Oxland (2nd year, North Vancouver).
“Our opponents have played well over these past three matches,” said Heat head coach Steve Manuel. “We knew the start of our second semester would not be easy –that’s Canada West volleyball.”
