The men’s and women’s basketball teams continued their seasons with each of them playing the Holland College Hurricanes over the weekend. After both teams defeated Crandall last weekend, they were both looking to keep their perfect records alive.
The women’s Tommies got off to a hot start in the first quarter; they controlled the tempo the entire time on route to a 19-7 lead after one quarter.
The second was a little bit of a different story with Holland battling back and keeping the game interesting, but a late serge by the Tommies before the half gave them a commanding lead after 20 minutes of play. If there was something the Tommies didn’t do well in the half it was their free throws; they only shot 5 for 16 in the first half.
The second half started in a very similar fashion to the first, with STU powering to an early lead behind three pointers from Renee Leblanc who also led the team in scoring with 18. The defense played a vital role in keeping the Hurricanes off the scoreboard in the second half.
While the Tommies defense looked the best it had all year, the scoring for The Tommies was just as impressive. It was spread out the entire game with rookies Kelly Vass chipping in with 12 and Hillary Goodine adding 11 to the win.
In the end, STU beat the Hurricanes 82-44 to advance their regular season record to 3-0.
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The men’s game started off in dominant fashion for HC, but ultimately ended up being a very exciting contest. The Hurricanes shot lights out in the first half, especially from behind the arc. They shot over 50 per cent from the three point line in the first 20 minutes with Corey Hollett doing most of the damage with 22 points. The Hurricanes ran with it and eventually took a 20 plus point lead into the locker room.
“I’ve never seen shooting like that before, but we had to figure a way to stop it in the second half,” said Tommies assistant coach Scott MacLeod .
In the shadow of the hurricanes brilliant first half was Nathan Mazurkiewics equally as impressive half with 20 points of his own to keep the Tommies in contention.
They came flying out of the gate to start the second half, where they went on a 23-6 run in the third to put them right back in the game.
Everyone was chipping in for the Tommies at both ends. The comeback continued in the fourth where they outscored Holland again with help by Stefan Bielecki with 12 points and Richie Wilkins adding 9.
However, the comeback ended just short, with a couple of timely missed shots in the last minute and they eventually lost the game 72-69.
The loss dropped their record to 2-1 on the season.
