Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – With a concerted defensive effort and a balanced scoring attack, the Lethbridge Pronghorns clinched a Canada West women's basketball playoff spot with a 69-54 win over the MacEwan Griffins on Saturday night.
Lethbridge moves to 9-9 in the standings with the result, knocking MacEwan down to 2-16.
"It gets us into the post-season, which is important," said Pronghorns head coach Dave Waknuk. "We've now made it three years in a row. When I first got here that wasn't a normality. That was a celebration and now it's an after-thought in a way, which is a good sign for our program."
In a key stretch of 14:48 from the mid second quarter to late in the third, the visitors limited the Griffins to just seven points, grabbed a 20+-point lead and sailed to the finish line.
"They certainly took us out of our game a little bit and then we went on a string of turnovers," said Griffins head coach Katherine Adams. "We had nine in the first half total and then nine in the third quarter alone.
"We made up some ground, for sure, in that regard and I think that showed in our shot attempts and the quality of shots we had. But then we started turning the ball over again and they capitalized on it. That resulted in us not scoring and them adding to their total. Certainly, that was a difference-maker."
Lethbridge made a concerted effort to shut down MacEwan's post game. The Griffins had only three shot attempts from inside in the first half, as their offence became one-dimensional with more than half of their first-half attempts coming from outside.
"Our focus going into these games has been defence," said Waknuk. "For us, stopping the ball with ball pressure and then getting rebounds were a big part of it and then sticking to small things like defensive rotations.
"We talked about it this morning, the only adjustments we made were we wanted to execute what we do better than we did last night. It's nothing new. You're just looking to execute better and I felt like we just executed really well."
Jessica Haenni led the Pronghorns with 20 points, while both Asnate Fomina (19 points, 11 rebounds) and Kacie Bosch (13 points, 11 rebounds) had double doubles. Katie Keith also had 11 rebounds for Lethbridge.
"I think for us, when we're a balanced offence, we're tough to stop," said Waknuk. "When we can get three or four people in double figures, that's a good sign for us. We share the ball a lot and try to play that way. When we start to hit shots, that makes it tough because every team knows it can guard one player easier than two or three or four options. We have talent that way. It's just being able to move the ball and take care of it."
Mackenzie Farmer was the only Griffins player in double digits with 18 points. But Adams noted at least their effort was a positive on the evening.
"I thought we responded really well," she said after Friday's 82-53 defeat left something to be desired in that department. "We saw a different team today with a different energy about them. I thought we really came to compete and battle from the get-go."
Next up for the Griffins is a visit to UNBC on Feb. 7-8, while the Pronghorns return home to host Thompson Rivers University on the same dates.
