Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
KAMLOOPS, B.C. – Too many turnovers proved costly for the MacEwan Griffins on Friday night as they became the first team this season to lose to the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack.
A whopping 34 of them were a blight on the scoresheet as MacEwan fell 78-69 to a team they beat by 25 points in preseason.
"It's certainly disappointing that we weren't able to come out and perform the way we know we're capable of," said Griffins head coach Katherine Adams. "They had a great game plan and they stuck to it. They took us out of our rhythm, and we had a tough time finding flow throughout the whole 40 minutes."
With the result, TRU is now 1-6 on the season, while MacEwan falls to 1-8.
Many of the other numbers on the boxscore indicate the Griffins could have won this game if they didn't turn the ball over as they out-rebounded the WolfPack 48-33 (and 14-7 on offensive boards) and moved the ball better than they did with 18 assists to 7.
Furthermore, both Mackenzie Farmer (19 points and 14 rebounds) and Shannon Majeau (18 points and 10 rebounds) had double doubles – usually the type of performances that help teams celebrate wins.
"They sat in a zone tonight, so we found opportunities inside and they capitalized on what the defence gave them and finished well," said Adams. "Part of their tactic as well to limit our transition game, they didn't send as many people to the boards, so it opened up rebounding opportunities for us."
Unfortunately, Farmer had a game-high nine turnovers for the Griffins, which matches the program record for the most in a Canada West contest, shared with four other players. She certainly wasn't alone as ball security became a team-wide epidemic in the contest.
"Ultimately it's the turnovers at the end of the day that really cost us and didn't give us a chance to be in this game at the end," said Adams, who noted it's certainly an issue they're working on.
"They stuck to their game plan. It wasn't something we weren't expecting, but instead of reading the play we were anticipating and just put the ball in positions where we got stuck a little bit and made some decisions that weren't the right ones at the right time."
Jessica Orr led the WolfPack with 25 points, while Megan Rouault had 21.
The teams will meet again on Saturday (6:30 p.m. MT, Canada West TV).
