It was a fog-bound murky night outside McKinnon Gym on Saturday, but inside the results were perfectly clear. The Mount Royal Cougars, in just their second season in Canadian Interuniversity Sport competition, were simply no match for two of the top teams in the league.
To cap a weekend sweep, the University of Victoria women defeated Mount Royal 76-51, and the Vikes men downed the Cougars 80-63.
“I think we just came out prepared,” said fourth-year Vikes guard John Woldu, whose team remains on top of Canada West, with a record of 14-2. “We shared the ball, we rebounded, we executed the plays.”
Mount Royal, now 7-9, came out with a huge effort, but the Vikes were so explosive from so many areas of the court, it was impossible to contain them.
The closest the Cougars came was early in the second quarter, when they narrowed the gap to 23-19. The Vikes, who won 68-49 on Friday, promptly turned on the afterburners, not to mention their defence. By halftime, the margin was 43-19. After three quarters, it was 70-42.
“We started off pretty well, then they came back, they made their push, and we got it together,” Woldu said.
“We told ourselves that we’ve got a goal to make it to nationals, and we’ve got to play better, to hold ourselves to a higher level.”
Terrell Evans was the Vikes’ top scorer, with 14 points, Chris McLaughlin and Marcus Tibbs added 13 each and Kyle Peterson had 12.
In the women’s game, the Vikes pushed out to a 43-21 lead at the half, and the Royals, who had a clutch of their best players banged up with injuries this weekend, were unable to respond.
“We really made a focus on locking it down in the first half,” said Jenna Bugiardini, who led the Vikes in scoring with 20 points. “Our defence really set the tone for the whole game.”
Jessica Renfew added 17 points for the Vikes, who defeated the Cougars 79-55 on Friday night.
In both games, Vikes coach Dani Sinclair was able to go to her bench, and spread the playing minutes around.
“It’s nice to be able to reward kids for the effort they put in day in and day out,” Sinclair said. “It also gives them an opportunity in a game to show what they can do, sometimes things we don’t necessarily see in practice.”
The Vikes, with a record of 11-5, went into the evening tied with the UBC Thunderbirds for second place in the Pacific Division.
Next weekend, the Vikes teams are Alberta bound, visiting Calgary on Friday, then travelling to Lethbridge.
• On Saturday, Day 2 of the Canada West swimming championships in Calgary, the Vikes’ best result came in the men’s 200 freestyle, where Keegan Zanatta finished first in a time of 1:47.62.
• In track, the Vikes ran to victory at the McGill Team Challenge in Montreal. Third-year Vike Grace Annear set a meet record in winning the 600-metre race, in 1:30.73. Teammates Rachel Francois (1:30.77) and Nicole Soderberg (1:32.19) placed second and third, respectively. On Friday, fourth-year Vike Thomas Riva set a record in the men’s 1,000-metre, with a winning time of 2:23.63.
