Women's Basketball Huskies complete sweep of Vikings

The Keyano Huskies Women's Basketball team closed out an impressive weekend sweep of the University of Alberta – Augustana Vikings with a 68-50 win at the Syncrude Sport and Wellness Centre Saturday afternoon.

"I thought our kids played really well," said Head Coach Dwyane Vigilance. "To just echo what [Kayla] said, I think we did put it together.

"We had a hard week. We really grinded this week to ensure that we had a good result. They played really well this weekend."

The Huskies took a four-point lead through the first quarter, made it a 13-point game at the half and then outscored the Vikings 33-28 in the final half to win by an 18-point margin.

Kiana Mintz showed her strengths once again, tallying 22 points and six rebounds, adding six assists and four steals. Zera Panesa added 14 points, six steals, and five assists from a starting role while Kayla Lutterodt came off the bench to add 10 points and four rebounds.

"It feels amazing," said Lutterodt of the weekend. "We played some great team basketball this weekend and it just felt like everything came together and all our hard work over the Christmas break, we showed it."

Vigilance had praise for his forward as she set a season-high performance in scoring, boosting her average to 6.1 points per game as she was named player of the game.

"She's been battling all year," said Vigilance of Lutterodt. "This is the first game where it she got it. She got the points, she got the rebounds and I'm very happy for her.

"This is hopefully the starting point of her to continue to play well and be consistent."

Tegan MacKinnon led the visiting Vikings with 16 points. Katie Ballhorn added 12 points and six rebounds to earn player of the game honours. Lauren Cardinal added 11 points and seven rebounds to join the trio of double-digit performers.

The Huskies finished the contest shooting 34.2 per cent from the field on 25-of-73 shooting. That featured a season-high 10 three-point shots made on 27 attempts. They also converted eight of their 14 trips to the foul line.

"We just knew that we needed to do our individual jobs and be attack-minded right from the stars, set our own pace in order to be successful this weekend," said Lutterodt. "The first half of both games was great.

"The third kind of dipped a little bit, but we made it work, grinded it out and finished strong."  

Conversely, the Vikings shot 35.8 per cent from the field on 19-of-53 shooting, sinking seven of 21 attempted three-point shots. They made five of 13 free throws.

The pair of wins changed the fortunes of the once 3-3 Huskies, who are now 5-3 and ranked second in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference's (ACAC) North Division.

They'll now prepare to face a team motivated to move up the standings as well in the NAIT Ooks.

"These two wins help a ton," noted Lutterodt. "They just gave us the momentum and the right mindset to go forward and battle for our next games against NAIT."

The Huskies and Ooks will do battle at the Syncrude Sport and Wellness Centre on Saturday, January 29 at 6:00 p.m. with a rematch Sunday, January 30 at 1:00 p.m.