Mac snaps Badgers’ winning streak
The Brock Badgers women’s basketball team saw its 11-game winning streak come to an end Saturday night with an 84-80 road loss to the McMaster Marauders.
Brock trailed the Marauders 71-64 with 2:31 left in the game but rallied to force overtime at 73-73 when Olivia Fiorucci hit a jump shot with eight seconds left in the game.
In overtime, Brock missed a layup late in overtime and McMaster closed the game out with a pair of free throws.
“I can’t win in overtime,” joked Brock head coach Mike Rao. “Every time I go into overtime, I lose. I am 0 for the world.”
Rao knew it wasn’t going to be easy because the Marauders are a good team and McMaster is a hard gym to come out with a win.
“They are good shooters and they hit 15 threes on us. We just didn’t defend the three well. They hit some unbelievable shots,” he said. “We didn’t get beat on the boards, we didn’t get beat by interior play, we got beat on the pick and roll a little bit and they made some really good shots at the end. That was it.”
Having the winning streak snapped was the least of Rao’s worries.
“I have never ever in my life gone into a game and said we have to win it. Winning was farthest from my mind. We concentrate on execution.”
Top performers for Brock were: Madalyn Weinert with 19 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists; Angeline Campbell with 18 points, nine rebounds and five assists; Tito Akinnusi with 18 points and seven rebounds; Vienna Vercesi with 10 points and eight rebounds off the bench; Fiorucci with seven points and six rebounds; and, Noor Bazzi with six points and five rebounds.
Leading scorers for McMaster (13-7), which pushed its winning streak to six games by defeating Brock, were Amy Stinson with 19 points; Emily Frankovic with 17 and Jenna Button with 14.
Thanks to Toronto Metropolitan (14-6) losing weekend games to Carleton and Ottawa, Brock (16-5) can clinch first place in the Central Division and a first-round bye in the playoffs with a victory in its season-ending home game Saturday at 6 p.m. versus Nipissing (3-17). A win would also give Brock an unbeaten regular season at home but Rao isn’t treating the game any differently. He just want his squad to play hard and execute.
Despite its record, Nipissing is no pushover. It has played competitive games against most of the teams in the league.
