Bold knock off Badgers

The Brock Badgers women’s basketball team saw its season come to an end Saturday afternoon following a 73-65 loss to the visiting Toronto Metropolitan Bold in Ontario University Athletics quarter-final action.

The Badgers got off to a great start by opening the game on a 16-3 run and they led 28-13 at the 5:56 mark of the second quarter. But then the wheels came off. Brock gave up a 13-1 run to the Bold and saw its lead shrink to 31-29 at the half. Toronto Metropolitan opened the second half on a 9-0 and the Badgers were chasing the game the rest of the afternoon.

“It’s obviously a little disappointing,” Brock head coach Mike Rao said. “We stopped defending and we gave it up in transition. The last basket they scored showed what we were doing and we didn’t work together and we didn’t protect the basket.

Things weren’t much better on the end of the floor.

“Offensively we were still. We didn’t move much and we expected things to come to us and they didn’t.”

Rao didn’t take any lessons from the loss.

“At this time of year you don’t learn much. It’s disappointing for them and I know they are a good team,” he said. “We have to play flawless basketball and we had too many fouls, too many missed opportunities, blown (defensive) assignments and too many misses inside. We didn’t capitalize on a lot of the things we could have.”

Rao agreed his team didn’t enter the playoffs playing their best basketball like they did during an 11-game winning streak coming out of the Christmas break.

“I just think defensively we gave up too many looks and you can’t give good looks to shooters. We knew who the shooters were and we should have stayed home a few times more than we did.”

It was a tough loss but one bad performance shouldn’t detract from what was an excellent season for the Badgers. Brock looked nothing like a playoff team early in the season but it finished the regular season with a 17-5 record and finished atop the Central Division standings.

“I told them that I was proud of them. They did well and it is what it is,” Rao said. “You lose today but in two weeks everyone will forget about it.”

He knows what it will take to improve his team next season.

“We need a lot of fitness. We need to get in shape. Our fitness level was down a bit and we need to improve that.”

Rao is pleased with his returning corps of players but feels they need more players to compliment the work of Madalyn Weinert. The third-year player had arguably one of the finest seasons ever by a Brock women’s player and she was at it again Saturday with 27 points and 15 rebounds.

“She played tremendous today and was unbelievable. She was very, very good and without her we were dead in the water,” he said.

By all accounts, Rao has had an excellent recruiting season.

“We will finalize them soon. We got two now and we are working on a few more. We lost one good recruit but that happens in this game.”

STATS PACK

Bold 73 Badgers 65

BPSN Player of the Game: Brock’s Madalyn Weinert with 27 points and 15 rebounds.

For the Brock Badgers: Weinert 27; Angeline Campbell 21; Tito Akinnusi 8.

For the Toronto Metropolitan Bold: Jayme Foreman 23; Catrina Garvey 21; Kaillie Hall 12; Corrynn Parker 7.

Game stats: Shooting percentage: Brock 31.4, TMU 33. Free throws: Brock 16-21, TMU 22-30. Rebounds: Brock 43, TMU 39. Turnovers: Brock 11, TMU 13.