LONDON, Ont. – Forwards
Victoria Heine and
Julia Curran scored 21 and 23 points respectively to help lead the Western Mustangs to a 73-64 win over the Brock Badgers on Wednesday night at Alumni Hall.
"It's been a long time coming. Today, pretty much everyone came in and did a great job," said Mustangs head coach
Brian Cheng, noting the balanced scoring effort from his team. "But we always have to be focused on the present and mindful of the future. We won this game, we'll celebrate, and then we're on to the next one."
"It was a fun game to play. We knew going into it that they were going to be playing with five guards, so Victoria and I had an advantage of the start. We took the advantage and made them pay for it," said Curran, commenting on her and Heine's scoring performance.
Western's front court duo combined to score 44 of the Mustangs 74 points in the victory, while also leading the team in rebounds, with Heine grabbing nine and Curran recording four.
Mackenzie Puklicz also hit double digits for the Mustangs, scoring 11 points to go along with three steals, finding success on both ends of the floor.
"It was just a good team effort. It's great to see Victoria back and good to see everyone firing on all cylinders today," said Cheng. "It bodes well for the future."
The Mustangs found themselves playing a short-handed Badger lineup on Wednesday evening Brock only had seven players in the lineup on Wednesday. Most notably, the Badgers were without forward Kira Cornelissen, who leads the OUA in scoring with 20 points per game, but has been sidelined since January 21.
Despite the shortage of players, Brock exposed Western's zone defence early in the opening quarter. The Mustangs countered with a scoring display of their own, topped off by a three-pointer from
Sarah Coulthard to give the Mustangs a 18-17 to end the first quarter.
The start of the second quarter seemed to be much of the same from Brock, as they continued to find success against the Western zone through solid ball movement. The Mustangs would quickly change back to their usual man-to-man defence and got their game back on track.
Western forced contested jump shots and put together a string of defensive stops to help their effort, pressuring Brock into eight first-half turnovers. But in spite of the improved defence and an early 10 points courtesy of Curran, the Mustangs found themselves facing a 34-33 deficit heading into halftime.
The opening of the second half proved to be equally as contested, as Brock and Western both found success scoring in the paint to start the third quarter. The energy of Curran and Coulthard spilled over from the first half to help maintain a slim advantage for the purple and white just past the midway point of the frame. Heine continued her stellar offence late in the third with five quick points to help push Western to a 54-45 advantage heading into the final 10 minutes.
The Badgers opened the fourth quarter scoring with a pair of threes to help cut the Mustang lead to just six points, but Curran would once again lead the Western scoring effort to hold off the short run. Brock managed to shrink the lead to single digits with a long jump shot with just under two minutes remaining, but an offensive rebound and three-pointer from Meredith McLeod ultimately sealed the victory for the purple and white as Western came away with a 73-64 victory.
Western entered the week holding down the 11th playoff seed, and the win moves the Mustangs to 8-11 on the year, good for third in the OUA West. The Badgers move to 8-10, and are ranked second in the OUA Central, as well as beginning the week as the eighth seed in the OUA RPI.
The Mustangs will be back in action this Saturday, February 18, as they will host the McMaster Marauders on Senior Day in Alumni Hall for their final regular-season game of the year. The game is set to begin at 1 p.m. and fans can catch the action live on OUA.tv.
