LANGLEY, British Columbia – The Trinity Western University women's basketball team fell to the University of Victoria Vikes 77-52 Saturday night at the Langley Events Centre.

After the Spartans earned an overtime win Friday, the Vikes responded in a big way Saturday, taking an early lead and maintaining control throughout on route to a convincing win.

TWU (1-1) closed the gap to just one point in the third quarter, 35-34, but Victoria (1-1) bounced right back and opened a 54-44 lead going to the fourth quarter. In the final frame, the Vikes poured it on, outscoring TWU 23-8.

The Vikes were led by Amira Giannattasio and Nicole Karstein with 19 and 13 points respectively and Jenna Bugiardini with seven rebounds.

The Spartans were led by Kayla Gordon (Prince George, B.C.), who had 12 points and six rebounds, while Jessie Brown (Langley) and Tessa Ratzlaff (Abbotsford, B.C.) had 10 points each.

Collectively, the Spartans shot 34 per cent from the field while Victoria shot 46.7 per cent. Victoria was also five for 10 from 3-point range while TWU was just two for 12.

"In Canada West, winning one game in a weekend is going to be tough and winning two games in a weekend is going to take a level of maturity and resolve that we still want to work towards," said Spartans coach Cheryl Jean-Paul. "I don't think Victoria approved of how the game ended yesterday and there was a level of certainty that they were going to own certain parts of the game. I just don't think we responded well to that.

"The positives are that we did battle back from 10-point leads twice and there is a lot of potential there, but we just didn't play to our potential in today's game. And that's the next area of growth for us."

The first quarter saw a slow start for TWU, but the Spartans were able to rally back to get within three points, 17-14, after 10 minutes. Ratzlaff was able to connect under the hoop and Luca Schmidt (Langley) decidedly took the task of bringing up the energy levels to get the Spartans going late.

The Vikes pushed the pace in the second quarter and took a 35-27 lead at the break thanks to an 11-point first half from Giannattasio.

The Spartans gained momentum quickly in the first few minutes of the second half and lowered the gap to one point. However, the Vikes again responded and with Victoria going to the free throw line nine times in the quarter, connecting on six of them, the Vikes ended the quarter up by 10, at 54-44.

The Vikes dominated the fourth quarter as they pulled away for a 25-point win.

"For us to have success, we have to maintain tempo, we have to move for each and we have to create looks for each other," Jean-Paul said. "I really feel that we didn't do those three things collectively on every single possession. I had 25 turnovers and we gave them 17 offensive rebounds, so we really had to stop them more often than we needed to."

Their Canada West schedule keeps TWU in the Lower Mainland next weekend as the Spartans are at UBC Nov. 13-14. The Vikes return home to host Saskatchewan Nov. 13-14.

Game Notes: Victoria out-rebounded the Spartans 40-30…the Vikes had 16 steals to TWU's five…the Spartans had 25 turnovers while Victoria had 19.

-TW-