Wesmen women pull away in second half

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This article was published 08/01/2024 (723 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jaime Taggart stressed a few key concepts to the Brandon University Bobcats after a woeful effort on Friday.

All of them were on the defensive end.

“We want to tighten up. We don’t want to be the team everybody scores 100 points against, we don’t. That’s not the message we want to send out there,” said the Bobcats women’s basketball interim head coach.

For 25 minutes, the Bobcats delivered. But the inevitable Winnipeg Wesmen scoring run hit and hit hard. They pulled away and cruised to an 84-65 win to sweep the Canada West weekend at the Healthy Living Centre on Saturday.

It was a much better start for Brandon (0-12) after a blowout first quarter on Friday. Reetta Tulkki got it going quickly with seven points to have her team lead 9-6, and Cali Yates added five points down the stretch in the opening frame.

Anna Kernaghan drilled two threes late to put the Wesmen (3-9) up 20-19 after 10 minutes.

The Bobcats stayed organized on the defensive end in the second quarter and prevented easy shots when they had chances to set up their zone.

On the other end, BU essentially worked two plays to death — a high-post give-and-go which used the passer as a screen for Ingalls to drive to the hoop and a simple strong screen by Eden Tabin which had a similar effect.

Faith Clearsky hit a pair of shots on a 7-0 run to lead 30-28, briefly, before Annika Goodbrandson dropped a quick five points for Winnipeg.

Raia Guinto drilled a three-pointer at the halftime buzzer, sending the Wesmen into the break up 42-38.

“Make some minor technical adjustments, but just stay encouraged, work on our confidence and build off of that,” Taggart said of the message at halftime. “Just really direct our focus on a couple of small things so that we execute those really well, then we master them.

“What we haven’t seen from our team, what we saw (Saturday), was our response. We were calm, confident and we’re just going to keep fighting. That’s where our victory was, being as young as we are to establish emotional control in the heat of the game and stay focused on the task is a big step for us.”

Brandon hung around until halfway through the third quarter, trailing 49-47, then gave up a crushing 17-4 run during the next three minutes to go down by double-digits for the first time.

In the middle of it, Tabin took her fourth foul, then mouthed off and drew a technical to remove herself from the contest.

The Wesmen went into the final quarter up 66-53 and continued pulling away from there.

Guinto finished with a game-high 24 points, with Clearsky posting 18 to lead Brandon. Winnipeg hit nine of 27 threes while Brandon made just three of 21.

The Bobcats visit the MacEwan Griffins in Edmonton next weekend, then return for their final home weekend on Jan. 19 and 20 hosting the Saskatchewan Huskies.

“The second half of the season we really want to focus on our defence and tighten things up,” Taggart said. “We’re sticking with the switching (between man-to-man and zone) just to keep the different looks and I think we’re trying to find a new level of comfort with an extreme level of ball pressure.

“We’re gaining more and more confidence in that and seeing it being more and more effective, which is what we’re going to need.”

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