Mintz, Women's Basketball Huskies top visiting Vikings
The Keyano Huskies Women's Basketball team took charge in the second quarter of their game Friday night and didn't look back to the tune of a 73-42 victory against the visiting University of Alberta – Augustana Vikings.
"I think it was a good win for our young team," said Head Coach Dwayne Vigilance. "They finally put it together and I'm happy for them."
A back-and-forth first quarter had the Huskies ahead by three as Kiana Mintz began to take charge with five points in her regular season debut with the Huskies. Moiyan Toure added four points and Kayla Lutterodt added a pair off the bench to round out the scoring.
The tide turned quickly in the second as the Huskies burst out for 20 points to the Vikings' three, building a 20-point lead at the half.
"It was a really good team effort," noted Mintz, who finished with 19 points and 14 rebounds to earn player of the game honours. "We needed everybody for this win.
"We kept the energy the whole game. We came out the way we wanted to come out. We wanted to come out strong and just keep that the whole way."
Mintz continued her charge in the second quarter with nine points while Zera Panesa got in one the scoring action with five points. Casey Gorieu added one of the team's three three-point shots in the quarter to build up the lead.
While the Vikings found their offensive game in the third quarter, the Huskies kept pressing. Toure took charge with six points and four rebounds in the quarter while Gorieu, Panesa, Mintz, and Marijana Besic also got in on the scoring action. Veronica Rodriguez continued the game trend of bench players providing timely offense with a pair of points herself.
Vigilance noted after the game how utilizing the bench players was a reality of how they wanted to build in the second half of the season.
"We're trying to play everyone as much as possible so they can get that experience," he said. "Just in case someone is down, that person can step in.
"That was on purpose what we did today."
Besic led the way with eight points in the final quarter as the Huskies built their lead up to 31. Rodriguez chipped in six more points and a quartet of other Huskies dropped buckets.
The impact of Mintz in her debut was noted by Vigilance following the game, who was more than happy to have another dangerous offensive option out on the court.
"She's one of the league's best guards," said Vigilance. "She's very hard to stop and when she gets downhill, she can pull up, she can shoot the three, she can make the extra pass.
"She makes us very dynamic."
Mintz gave credit to her teammates for driving the play down low like they did and out-rebounding the Vikings on the offensive side of the ball with an 11-5 advantage at the end of the game.
"Definitely coming out of the third, them hitting those back-to-back threes was definitely not what we wanted," she said. "We just wanted to keep our defence high whenever we're playing defence really well, getting those stops, getting lots of rebounds, we translate that into offence.
"Having our bigs rebound, being able to put that back up really helped us tonight."
The Huskies finished the contest shooting 39.7 per cent from the field (27-for-68), including six three-point shots made on 25 attempts. Keyano also made good on 13 of their 19 trips to the foul line.
Toure added 12 points and 10 rebounds to join Mintz in the double double club. Besic finished with 13 while Panesa tallied 12 to round out the quartet of double-digit producers.
Tegan MacKinnon had nine points, two rebounds, and one steal to earn player of the game honours for her side. Alex Asuncion had seven points and Hannah Mitchell added six to round out the trio of top scorers on the visitors.
The Vikings shot 30 per cent (15-for-50) from the field, making five of 17 three-point attempts. They also knocked down seven of their 17 shots from the foul line.
The two sides will match up again on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. to close out the weekend doubleheader.