LANGLEY, British Columbia – A strong second half by the MacEwan Griffins helped the visitors defeat the Trinity Western Spartans 69-50 in a women's basketball preseason match up Thursday night at the Langley Events Centre. The loss drops the Spartans preseason record to 2-2.
"MacEwan was disciplined and assertive and they didn't stop the entire game. If we compare this game with who we were against Ryerson, I think this is the other end of the spectrum for our team. There wasn't really a facet of the game that we did well today. I thought we got pushed down and they were able to push us back and we did not respond to that," commented TWU head coach Cheryl Jean-Paul after the game. "We struggled to score and we relied way too heavily on our perimeter game to start the game. And we couldn't find looks for each other because we were not moving for each other."
"We need to be better with what our expectations are of ourselves. But I don't think that was us today. We definitely want to see a different version of ourselves moving into regular season. But we also have to learn from this and get back to work to get better."
The first quarter was relatively evenly played with the Spartans trailing the Griffins by four points, 20-16, after 10 minutes. MacEwan built on their lead heading into the half out scoring TWU 12-8 for an eight point, 32-24, half-time lead.
In the third quarter the Griffins broke the game open as the Spartans had difficulty finding the bottom of the basket. At the end of 30 minutes the visitors from Edmonton had extended their lead to 19 points, 53-34, by outscoring TWU 21-10. In the fourth quarter MacEwan extended their lead to 22 points, 56-34, with just over eight minutes remaining.
TWU's Jessie Brown hit back-to-back three pointers to bring the Spartans to within 16 points, 56-40 with 7:38 remaining. It would be as close as TWU would get in the second half as the Griffins defeated the Spartans 69-50.
The Spartans will finish the weekend with a couple of scrimmages as they get ready to open Canada West conference play next weekend. TWU will open the 2015-16 season against the University of Victoria Vikes November 6-7. Game times on Friday and Saturday at the LEC are set for 6 p.m. and 5 p.m. respectively.
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