It has been a long time in the making, but the Trinity Western Spartans accomplished a little bit of history on Saturday night.
For the first time since joining Canada West in 1999/2000, the women’s basketball team is advancing in the playoffs.
The Spartans made sure of that with a 67-60 win over the Brandon Bobcats at the Langley Events Centre.
TWU won the best-of-three series two games to one to advance to the Canada West quarter-finals.
The Spartans won their first-ever playoff game last year, but lost the series in three games to the Victoria Vikes.
“We made a commitment that we were going to do whatever it took to make it to playoffs again and advance past the first round,” said Kayla Gordon, who had 19 points, eight rebounds, three steals, two assists and a block in 34 minutes of action.
“This is the fruition of our hard work. There have been so many people who have come before us and laid the groundwork and we are the ones that get to realize it.”
“We are very blessed to be in this position.”
All three games of the series were at the LEC but the Spartans dropped game one, falling 56-48 on Thursday.
In game one, head coach Cheryl Jean-Paul said the team lacked intensity, over-dribbling the ball and playing frantic.
“This team all season long has just responded really well to — we will call it the constructive criticism I give to them Saturday mornings at shooting video — and they received it well and made some adjustments,” she said following Saturday’s game three victory.
They stayed alive with a convincing 70-57 win on Friday night.
“We just had to shake it off and realize that was the worst version of ourselves. We just wanted to come out and show who we were, just for each other and not for anyone else,” Gordon said.
The game three victory saw the Spartans lead by as many as a dozen points in the third quarter before the Bobcats clawed back to within three points in the fourth quarter.
“Brandon battled hard, we just wanted to make sure we represented ourselves well in game three and it worked out in our favour so we are excited about that,” Jean-Paul said.
Tessa Ratzlaff had 19 points to share the scoring lead with Gordon while Luca Schmidt hit a pair of big three-pointers to finish with six points and four assists.
The Spartans now travel to Regina to face the No. 2 Cougars in a best-of-three series Feb. 23-25.
TWU went 1-1 against Regina during the regular season.
Gary Ahuja Langley Times
The Trinity Western Spartans celebrate the program's first-ever playoff series victory after they defeated the Brandon Bobcats 67-60 on Saturday night at the Langley Events Centre. The win advances the Spartans to the Canada West quarter-finals this week in Regina.
