University of Victoria Vikes men’s basketball head coach Murphy Burnatowski said he thought his squad “took the foot off the gas pedal” despite two victories to open the Canada West season 99-69 against the Trinity Western Spartans and 91-65 against Fraser Valley Cascades.
It was full pedal to the metal Friday night in their third conference outing as the Vikes burnished their reputation as the top-ranked team in the country with a 102-48 victory over the UNBC Timberwolves on Ken and Kathy Shields Court in CARSA gymnasium.
The dynamic forward Renoldo Robinson from Montreal scored 18 points, Ethan Boag out of Claremont 17 and defending U Sports MVP Diego Maffia out of Oak Bay 13 as UVic led 28-10 after the first quarter and extended that to a yawning 70-34 in the third quarter.
The Vikes moved to 3-0 in Canada West and 10-1 overall, with the only loss to NCAA Div. 1 Rhode Island. UNBC is 0-3 in Canada West
The UVic women’s team, meanwhile defeated UNBC 73-69 to move to 2-1 in conference while the Timberwolves fell to 1-2.
“We battled through tonight by being more assertive and aggressive, and by taking care of the ball with less turnovers, and with some good game-clock management,” said UVic head coach Carrie Watts.
UVic scoring was well distributed as sophomore Karis de Paiva from Calgary led UVic with 13 points while Makena Anderson, last season’s Canada West rookie of the year out of SMUs, added 12 points and Abigail Becker from Parksville 11 points. De Paiva and Mimi Sigue pulled down 11 rebounds each and Becker eight.
“Karis [de Paiva] is so athletic and strong and her versatility is huge for us,” said Watts.
“Karis and Makena [Anderson] have great careers ahead of them,” added Watts, a former national team player, about her promising sophomores.
“They are huge assets this season and down the road.”
Sveta Boykova, who has twice represented Russia in the World University Games, led UNBC with 20 points. Viktoriia Filatova, in the top-five of Canada West scoring and also from Moscow, scored 10 points.
The Timberwolves’ Russian pipeline is because of head coach and former Soviet Union national team player Sergey Shchepotkin. He is in his 12th season on the bench in Prince George after having played 15 seasons of pro basketball in Russia and Lebanon.
The UVic-UNBC teams meet again tonight at CARSA with the men’s game at 7 p.m. and women’s game at 5 p.m.
UVIC SOCCER : Trinity Western blanked the UVic Vikes 3-0 Friday in an all-Canada West consolation-side game in the U Sports national women’s soccer championship tournament in Halifax. The sixth-ranked Vikes, beaten 5-0 by the Ottawa Gee Gees in the quarter-finals on Thursday, were eliminated from further play.
