By taking advantage of a wounded and young opponent, the Victoria Vikes men’s basketball showcased its depth in a 91-58 victory over the UNBC Timberwolves at the Northern Sports Centre on Thursday.
Even without U SPORTS MVP and two-time national scoring leader Diego Maffia who is out due to injury, the Vikes shared the wealth and leaned on Renoldo Robinson, Sam Maillet, Geoffrey James and Ethan Boag, all of whom tallied 12 points or more shining brightly on the newly named Brownridge Court.
Every Victoria player who dressed tallied at least three points.
The nationally top-ranked Vikes raced out to a 25-15 lead at the end of the first quarter, led by the hot hand of James.
UNBC who were without star guard Justin Sunga, power forward Will Keyes, veteran forward Josh Gillespie and rookie standout Isaiah Bias – head coach Todd Jordan’s youthful bunch tried with all its might to keep it close in the first half but still found themselves down 55-29 at halftime.
Evgeni Baukin got off to a hot-start offensively draining three consecutive long-range jumpers and lead the way with a team-high 14 points.
In his first Canada West game, 6’9 freshman Miller Davies provide a glimpse of what could be a bright future in a T-Wolves jersey providing eight points and four rebounds in roughly 17 minutes of action.
Fellow first-years Danillo Gonzalez, Marcus Wilson and Wesley Ainu’u finished the game with a combined 19 points between them.
In a pair of statistical categories UNBC (1-10) actually scored pretty even with the 11-0 Vikes. The Timberwolves only committed 17 turnovers, one fewer than Victoria and were only outrebounded by a 40-37 margin.
The big difference was in the shooting where Victoria converted 33/64 field goals (51.6%) while UNBC capitalized on just 36.1% of their field goal attempts going 22-for-61.
In women’s action, Victoria (6-5) rode the hot-hand of Tana Pankratz who had a game-high 20 points securing a 71-50 triumph over the Timberwolves (3-8).
Pankratz went 6-for-16 on field goals and was perfect from the free-throw line (7-for-7). Her running mate Abigail Becker fell just shy of a double-double recording seven points and 13 rebounds.
Viktoriia Filatova led the way offensively for UNBC with 15 points while Bella Mesquita had a hot night shooting going 5-for-8 include three from beyond the arc ending the night with 13 points.
Victoria outrebounded the Timberwolves 51-34 and picked them apart in the paint by a 34-14 margin.
Both UNBC basketball teams are back in action on Saturday when they host the Trinity Western Spartans. Tip off for both games is at 5 and 7pm.
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