The University of King’s College Blue Devils brought their 4-8 record to Fredericton to face the undefeated lady Tommies at the South Gym and it quickly went to 4-9 as the Tommies beat them Saturday afternoon 64-29.
St. Thomas got off to one of their weaker starts of the season on Saturday. The first quarter was very slow-placed and saw both teams make a lot of unforced turnovers and made it an ugly opening ten minutes.
The second quarter continued to see the Tommies struggle, especially from behind the arc as they went one for seven in the half.
It was one the lowest scoring quarters of the year for the Tommies, with only 12 points to their name. This gave the Blue Devils a bit of momentum heading into the break, but STU still held a 32-20 lead at the half.
As the second half started, it was clear that the Tommies had new life in them as they came out with a force. The third quarter was a statement for STU as they went on a 20 to six run. It was one of the first games of the year where the bench took over and thus played a large role in picking up the win.
In the second half, STU held the Blue Devils to just nine points and only three in the fourth quarter. Player of the game Kathleen McCann who had a solid 11 points and six rebounds said: “I really thought our bench stepped it up and that everyone contributed to the win.”
First year Hilary Goodine also had 11 points in helping the Tommies improve their record to a perfect 13-0.
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The men played a very similar game against the Blue Devils as the women did on Saturday and were able to pick up a 79-54 victory.
The game went back-and-fourth the entire first half of the game, with clutch shooting from Alex MacKillop and J.D Howlett of the Blue Devils who combined for 80 per cent of the team’s points in the game.
The Devils took a surprising two-point lead after the first 20 minutes. The Tommies only hit 14 of 46 shots in the first half, which was the main reason for the 35-33 half-time deficit.
Just like the women, the men looked like a new team in the second half with an onslaught of scoring from Nathan Mazurkiewicz and Richie Wilkins, who each had 22 points in the game. The shooting percentage went from 30 per cent in the first half to over 50 per cent in the second half.
They held the Blue Devils to under 20 points in the second, which included solid defence from David Dolan.
“We knew we had to tighten up our defence, keep Howlett off the score sheet. If we took care of that we knew we would be fine. It was a good character win for us since we’re missing a lot of our key guys,” he said.
The win pushed their record to 10-4 and currently the Tommies now sit second in the league standings.
