With both the men’s and women’s teams victorious, the University of Victoria Vikes basketball program scored success in Canada West games at the CARSA Performance Gym at UVic on Saturday.
The women’s team bounced back after a tough home opener on Friday to beat the University of Alberta Pandas 74-62 Saturday night. The men’s team beat the University of Alberta’s Golden Bears 64-55, handing the Golden Bears their first loss of the series the same night.
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The Pandas beat the Vikes women’s team 67-52 on Friday night at CARSA during the weekend series opener. The Pandas were able to disrupt many of the Vikes plays on Friday and take advantage of mistakes made by the Victoria team. The Pandas dominated in points off the boards and off the paint.
The Vikes women returned on Saturday to beat the Pandas in an overall better performance. The Vikes did a better job as a unit on Saturday, getting hands down the passing lanes and doing some disruption of their own. The Vikes were also able to take advantage of turnovers, the Pandas finishing with 23 turnovers and yielding 21 points to the Vikes.
Meanwhile, the men’s Vikes leaned on three players in their bout against the Golden Bears. Fifth-year forward Hayden Lejeune led the Vikes with 11 points in the first quarter, but was held scoreless in the second. Matthew Ellis took a pair of jump shots from the free throw line and added a running floater for ten points in the first half. Third-year forward Dominick Oliveri recorded only five points on five shots in the first half, racking up 17 points during the game for the Vikes.
The Golden Bears kept the pace up by capitalizing on the Vikes mistakes, using the 15 turnovers provided by Victoria to score 17 points.
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On Friday, Nov. 22, both Vikes teams host the Brandon University Bobcats at CARSA for more basketball action on home turf.
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