T-Birds earn decisive win vs division leading Spartans

VANCOUVER – The No.10 nationally ranked UBC Thunderbirds (7-4) started off the second half of the season strong with a convincing 85-55 over the Pacific Division-leading Trinity Western Spartans (10-3) Friday night at War Memorial Gym.
 
Jaelie Ibbetson led UBC with a 16 point and nine rebound performance, with Stella LaGrange (14 points), Sofia Bergman (13 points), and Olivia Weekes (10 points, nine rebounds) rounding out the Thunderbird scoring. Myrlaine Shelbey was the leading scorer for the Spartans with 15 points and five rebounds.
 
"Ya it's the old Forrest Gump line with the first game out of the holiday break," said UBC head coach Dave Taylor. "It's always like a box of chocolates and this time I got the chocolate covered cherry that I like the best so it was nice to see. I just loved our energy right and we had talked about trying to increase our pace a little bit and obviously we hit some shots which was great so I was thrilled with the job we did tonight."


 
UBC set the tone early and jumped out to a 11-0 lead, with the first seven points coming from LaGrange. The Thunderbirds would build a 22-8 lead in the first quarter, shooting 44.4% from the field. TWU would cut the lead to eight midway through the second quarter with a lay-up by Blessing Ibekwe, but back-to-back three pointers by LaGrange and Jaeli Ibbetson would spark a UBC 8-0 run. At the half, UBC would hold a 42-22 lead with three players in double digit scoring (LaGrange, Weeks, Ibbetson).


 
The second half would start slowly, but UBC would control the paint with 12 points inside the blue and extend their lead to 62-32. Rookie Reese Tam would come off the bench early in the fourth to knock down a three-pointer and the high scoring fourth quarter would end the game 85-55. 
 
UBC shot 47.1% from the field, including six of 15 from beyond the three-point line, with all 12 players getting playing time and 10 different scorers. TWU will look to rebound tomorrow afternoon after shooting 34.4% and only 12.5% from beyond the arc.


 
"One of our keys to success has to be our inside presence and we we're effective with our overall rebounding (46) and points in the paint (42)," added Taylor. "Especially with them having a big player in there who can hurt us but we also did a good job defensively altering their shots."
 
Catch the two teams in a rematch on Saturday afternoon with tip-off at 4:00 p.m. on Canada West TV.