Jason Hills
For MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON — The MacEwan Griffins found out how important momentum swings can be.
After a hard-fought opening quarter against the University of Alberta Pandas, the momentum slipped away after Alberta went on a 14-0 run to start the second quarter and MacEwan couldn't recover in a 77-49 loss, Friday night at the David Atkinson gymnasium.
Shannon Majeau led MacEwan with 13 points, while Mackenzie Farmer recorded 10 points and nine rebounds.
Rylee Semeniuk led the Pandas with 15 points and Claire Signatovich recorded 12 points and 10 rebounds in the win for Alberta.
The loss drops MacEwan to 2-11 this season, while the Pandas improved to 10-3.
"We put a lot of emphasis on starting strong and coming out and competing right from the get-go and being competitive, and I thought we did a good job of that in the first quarter," said Griffins head coach Katherine Adams.
"But Alberta put a lot of pressure on us and slowed us down (in transition) and we weren't able to sustain our play. They went on a run, and got the momentum in their direction, and we just weren't able to get it back."
MacEwan trailed 18-15, and gave the Pandas a big test in the opening quarter, but that changed in the second quarter.
Signatovich came out strong for Alberta at both ends of the floor and was a big part of the Pandas 14-0 run.
The Griffins finally stopped the Pandas offensive attack when Noelle Kilbreath earned a tough bucket with 3:20 left in the first half for the Griffins first points of the quarter.
It was a tough second quarter all-around for MacEwan as they were outscored 21-8.
"We play our best when we play fast, and they really had their press working well against us, and it slowed us down," said Majeau.
"We couldn't get those stops consistently, and offensively we became stagnant."
The Griffins were down three after the first quarter and then found themselves down 16 at the half, and their struggles continued to start the second half, as the Pandas defence held MacEwan to just six points, and they trailed 59-29, entering the fourth quarter.
"It's tough when you can feel that momentum slipping away, it's tough, but at the end of the day, it comes down to our leaders on the team, like myself, Mack (Farmer) or Hayley (Lalor) to settle everything down," said Majeau.
"When you get down big, sometimes we are caught playing hero ball. It comes from a good place. You want to help the team and do something, but sometimes it forces things. Instead of letting the game come to you, we force it a little bit."
Allie Spenrath cuts around a Pandas defender on Friday (Eduardo Perez photo).
It was a tough shooting night for MacEwan as they shot just 32.2% from the field, but one bright spot was the play of Toni Gordon. The first-year guard provided a lot of energy off the bench. She made some big plays at both ends of the floor. She finished with six points, six rebounds and three steals.
"She gave us a lot of energy," said Adams.
"She's young and still learning and it's about finding those moments where she can shine, and she had some moments today where she brought some excitement to the crowd and made you go wow."
The Griffins held it together and put forward a strong fourth quarter, as they started to click on both offence and defence.
The game was out of reach, but they certainly want to build on their play in the fourth quarter.
"That's something that as a team, we're not going to roll over and concede. We have a roster of a lot of young players, and it's valuable experience for them to get in and see what works," said Adams.
"The fourth quarter we did a good job of finding some small wins, even though we knew the game was out of hand at that point. Hopefully that gives us some momentum going into tomorrow's game."
