All Dani Sinclair wants for Christmas is to see more fight-back from her UVic Vikes women’s basketball team following the holiday season.
At 2-6 in the Canada West standings and on a six-game losing skid, the Vikes head coach isn’t about to accept a lump of coal with a smile.
“People keep saying, ‘Well, you’re playing the top teams in the country.’ But that’s where we want to be. We’re not content to be anywhere else,” Sinclair said. “We’re not playing in a way to succeed at that level.”
The smaller Vikes were out-sized by the visiting No. 2-nationally ranked Alberta Pandas in Saturday’s 77-50 loss at McKinnon Gym, the team’s final game before the Christmas break.
Victoria was slated to take several days off, then get back to practice for a few, then break for more than a week prior to Christmas before preparing again for a California adventure.
The Vikes will head to Costa Mesa, California, to face Vanguard University on Dec. 29, then continue to La Mirada to test Biola University before returning home to prepare for Canada West conference play. Victoria travels to Winnipeg to face the Manitoba Bisons on Jan. 9.
“The nice thing about that is it’s non-CIS teams. Obviously, getting away and going somewhere warm will be nice. We’ll do some training down there as well, then off to Manitoba,” said Sinclair. “We’ve created a situation where there’s not a lot of wiggle room.”
Jenn Bugiardini and Jessica Renfrew are averaging 14.5 and 14.4 points per game, respectively, for the Vikes. Amira Giannattasio is third in the conference in three-point shooting percentage at 52.
Meanwhile, the 6-2 Vikes men also head to California to attend the Tom Byron Classic at Santa Barbara. They’ll open against Westminster College of Utah on Dec. 29, then tip off against Westmont College of California on Dec. 30.
Coach Craig Beaucamp’s troops moved up the CIS polls this week to No. 6 from No. 8 before the holiday break.
They, too, travel to Winnipeg on Jan. 9 to face the 8-2 Bisons, who have won three straight and are tied atop the Pioneers Division of Canada West with Calgary. Victoria is next, just ahead of 5-3 Winnipeg. The remainder (Alberta, Lethbridge, Regina, Saskatchewan, UBC, Brandon and Trinity Western) are all .500 or below.
The Vikes’ two losses came on the road in convincing 82-70 and 95-70 setbacks to the 4-4 Huskies.
“The trip to Saskatchewan hurt,” Vikes head coach Craig Beaucamp said following his team’s sweep of Alberta last weekend. “It showed some cracks, but we all have them.
“We’ll take a week off here and then practise through the Christmas break,” he added. “We’ll need those games in Santa Barbara and then we open up in Manitoba, which is an awfully good team right now.”
Guard Marcus Tibbs has been money of late for Beaucamp and in his last effort he poured in 23 points in Saturday’s 76-52 win over Alberta. Mack Roth and the always steady Chris McLaughlin added 14 points each, while Reiner Theil had 12.
McLaughlin is fifth in Canada West scoring with 18.8 points per game, while Tibbs is 14th at 16.1. McLaughlin is also averaging nine rebounds a game while Theil is at 6.8.
