Kodiaks basketball keeps rolling in early stages of season

By Lethbridge Herald on November 7, 2022.

Herald Photo by Justin Seward Lethbridge College Kodiaks Tylee Leavitt dives for a loose ball against the NAIT Ooks on Saturday at Val Matteoti Gym.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

Lethbridge College Kodiaks basketball teams had another strong weekend after going a combined 4-0 on home court against Northwestern Polytechnic and NAIT.

The women’s team won their games quite handily after a 70-33 win on Friday against Northwestern, followed by a 63-46 win over NAIT on Saturday.

Starter Courtney Deemter and reserve Madison Barfuss each had 16-point nights against Northwestern.

Kitawna Sparks had 21 points  to lead the way against NAIT.

“We created quite a few turnovers,” said head coach Ken McMurray.

“We created 28 on Friday night, which led to quite a few easy baskets and then not quite as many against NAIT. NAIT has some very good guards but I felt our defence was sound against them as well. (The) 2-3 (two girls at the top and three down low) zone worked well for us. I just felt like they communicated well, they kept the ball from getting into the centre of the court and just paid dividends to us.”

The ladies have pushed their record to 5-1 with the wins.

Meanwhile, the men’s team are off to perfect 6-0 start to the season after a 97-71 win over Northwestern  on Friday and a nail-biting 72-69 win over NAIT on Saturday.

“I thought Friday night’s win against Northwestern was a solid four-quarter performance,” said Ryan Heggie, men’s head coach.

“The score wasn’t quite an example of how close the game actually was. We won all four quarters, but they were actually closer quarters than the final score. The game, from my viewpoint, was a high intensity game for the whole game which is nice.”

Heggie thought the boys were consistent the whole game.

“We shot 50 per cent from the field, 50 per cent from the three-point line and unfortunately only 50 per cent from the foul line,” said Heggie.

“We out rebounded a bigger team. So that’s an example of how hard our guys are getting to the glass.”

Pacen Blackmore paced the Kodiaks with 24 points on Friday.

Heggie felt Saturday’s game was the biggest test so far.

“I felt that our Saturday match up against NAIT was going to be our biggest test of the season so far,” he said.

“They’re a top team in the north. They have excellent guard play, they’re a good sized team up front, they full court pressure you  and they play really tight intense defence all the time. Yeah, we were looking forward to that game because that was going to be  our first game against an opponent above .500 in the win column.”

Heggie added that was a game that could have gone either way.

“We knew going into it, it was going to be our biggest test so far and I’m happy with how the guys responded,” said Heggie.

Blackmore dropped 15 points on Saturday and Filip Karanovic had 16 points on Saturday.

Both teams have bye weeks this week before heading north to Edmonton for two game on Nov. 18-19.