(FREDERICTON, NB) The UNB Varsity Reds held the StFX X-Women off the scoreboard for the first 3:56 of the game - and scoreless for the entire fourth quarter - on their way to a 54-18 victory.
The win was the 12th of the season for the Varsity Reds. Laura Kaye (Fredericton, NB) alone outscored the X-Women with 22 points in the game. Kaye scored 14 of her 22 in the first quarter and was named the Subway Player of the Game.
"It feels good, but we've got a job to do tomorrow," said Kaye. "We can't be too excited. Anything can happen in this league, so we've got to get prepared for tomorrow and do it again."
Eva Tumwine (Fredericton, NB) came off the bench for UNB and scored 13 points, while Grace Simpson (Fredericton, NB) recorded a game-high 9 rebounds.
The Varsity Reds built a 10-0 lead early and never looked back. UNB led 20-8 after the first quarter and 31-14 at the half.
Neither team did much in the third quarter, where the VReds limited the X-Women to just four points. That was it for the StFX offence.
"That is a source of pride for us," said Kaye, of holding X scoreless in the fourth quarter. "They missed a lot of shots that we shouldn't allow them to take and that'll be something we look to fix for tomorrow."
X-Women head coach Augy Jones did not comment after the loss. "No comment," said Jones, as he pushed open the door to the team's dressing room. "I have nothing to say."
His UNB counterpart was in a better mood, but not by much. "You've got to be pleased with our defensive effort, pretty pleased with our rebounding effort," said Varsity Reds head coach Jeff Speedy. "Maybe we were too relaxed on offence, because I thought we took a lot of poor shots, a lot of rushed shots."
"We keep track of our poor shots versus our good shots, and our poor shots outnumbered our good shots 2 to 1 in the first half, so that's something we've got to fix," he said.
Kaye too admits the Varsity Reds didn't play as well as they can offensively, but she was happy with their defence. "They missed a lot of shots they should've made," said Kaye. "That speaks to our defensive effort, that we could keep them to that many points and that we were still able to be efficient offensively."
The win improves UNB's record to 12-5, good for third place in the Atlantic University Sport standings. The X-Women are now 1-15.
The teams meet again Sunday afternoon, at 3:30pm. The game was re-scheduled from Friday night, due to weather.
Recap Courtesy Andy Campbell/UNB Athletics