November 21, 2009 – Women’s Basketball

Squamish, B.C. – The Quest Women’s Basketball team is now in uncharted territory.  On Saturday, with their second win of the weekend against the visiting Langara College Falcons, the Kermodes set a school record for conference wins in a season.  The win marks their fourth consecutive victory in league play and brings their regular season record to 4-2.   

The game itself was not pretty.  The Kermodes came out with a very strong defensive performance to lead 37-24 at the halftime break but did struggle in missing some easy opportunities from close range.  Head Coach Todd Jordan was happy with the start on the defensive end of the floor.  “We came out with great energy and were able to keep the Langara girls contained on the perimeter.  We forced them to take a lot of contested jump shots early.  This fed our offense and we were able to get some run outs and some easy scores.”

The second half was not as successful for the Kermodes, who came out of the locker room looking sluggish.  Jordan was disappointed in his team’s performance during the half. “We came into the second half of the game with very little focus.  In the first half we did a great job of helping one another out if we got beat from the perimeter, but it was like the girls forgot everything they had done to be successful.  Our help side was completely non-existent in the second half.”

Langara guard Stephanie Scott took full advantage of a soft Quest defense, slashing to the rim to score 11 of her 14 points in the second half.  It was on the strong performance of Scott and teammate Kelsie Pelling that the Falcons rallied back to take a 58-53 lead with just over 3 minutes remaining in the game.  Pelling finished the contest with a game high 19 points.

Quest showed a lot of character in fighting back in the final minutes.  A bucket by Krystal Schouten (River East/Winnipeg, MB) off a Delainee Behrns (Balgonie Greenall/Regina, SK) feed started the final Kermode surge with two and a half minutes remaining.  With well timed hoops by Nicola Hitchcock (Riverside/Coquitlam, B.C.) and Brittany Harteveld (Riverside/Pitt Meadows, B.C.), the Kermodes were able to outscore the Falcons 7-2 in the final 2 minutes and narrowly escape with a 63-62 victory.  Behrns was also clutch in knocking down the go ahead free throw with 22 seconds remaining.  Hitchcock and Schouten paced the team with 12 points a piece.

While Coach Jordan was happy to come away from the weekend with two wins, he still wants to see his team improve in some major areas.  “We need to be able to play for a full forty minutes.  Tonight we only played defense for a half and that just isn’t going to get it done against the better teams in our league.  The other major area we really need to address is finishing around the rim.  If we had put away even two thirds of our easy opportunities tonight it would have been a completely different game.  We’re still going through some growing pains as a young team, but at this point we’re 4-2 and our destiny is in our own hands so I’m happy with our position.”

The Kermodes leave for Prince George on Thursday to face a very strong UNBC Timberwolves team in a pair of weekend contests.  The games will be Jordan’s first return to the school at which he both played and worked as an assistant coach.  The Timberwolves are currently sitting in 3rd place in the conference with a 4-1 record.  The games tip at 6 pm this upcoming Friday and Saturday.            

 Boxscore:  http://www.cybersportsusa.com/livegames/gbox/CybersportsQueLan11212009600pm.asp