The Providence University College Pilots women’s basketball team faced the Université de Saint-Boniface (USB) Les Rouges on January 24 and pulled off an impressive win with a final score of 78–31.
However, the following weekend was a struggle. On January 27–28, they suffered successive losses against the Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) Blazers, falling 63–72 and 63–78 respectively.
“We have been challenged with some of our toughest regular season competition this semester and it hasn’t been smooth sailing,” says head coach Joel Coursey. “We made lots of unforced mistakes in both games [against CMU] but especially the first half of Saturday’s contest. But we know that if we clean up our game and shoot the ball better, we can compete for a banner.”
The Pilots will wrap up the regular season this weekend with a pair of games at USB.
The men’s basketball team remains undefeated this season after a busy week of play. On January 24, they defeated USB 85–79. The following weekend, they beat CMU 75–68 and 88–70.
“We had a challenging three-game week,” says their coach, Pierre Dubreuil. “The first game against USB saw them playing strong and physically, throwing us off-guard. Nevertheless, our team stayed in control, not letting Les Rouges take the best out of us. Another strong performance inside from Riley Paul and Nate Ens, supported by the 13 points from senior guard Josh Armstrong, gave us the win.”
In the first of two matchups against CMU, Debreuil notes the strong defence on both sides.
“There were some great stops down the stretch and a key shot from downtown by freshman Rhys Maestre to beat the shot clock. This gave us sufficient room to breathe, with seconds left on the clock,” says Debreuil. “Special mention goes to first-year point guard Ilijah Roque for bringing 12 assists that night, helping to secure the first seed in the Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference and a direct trip to the finals.”
The second outing against CMU was a strong one. They took an 18-point lead and went on to win, bolstered by performances from first-year centre Emmanuel Oleko and Josh Armstrong.
The team has two remaining regular season games and will head to the MCAC Championship on Sunday, February 5.
The women’s volleyball team had a rough weekend against Les Rouges. On January 27, they fell 0–3 and lost again the next day 1–3.
“In a weekend doubleheader with the top ranked St. Boniface team, we had a great opportunity to test ourselves and potentially gain some ground in the standings,” says coach Kyle Guenther. “Unfortunately, we didn’t bring our best on the first night and made too many errors to keep the match close. The second match was tighter, as we made a few adjustments with our lineup and ultimately took a step forward. But again we were not converting the chances when we had them.”
As for the men’s volleyball squad, they fared much better with a 3–0 win against USB on January 27 and another 3–0 sweep the next day.
“The squad has been forced to adapt to a number of variations among the lineup over the last few weeks due to illness and injury,” says coach Cody Quiring. “And this weekend was a testament to the group battling hard and laying out all the effort even when specific systematic options weren’t clicking at full steam. Plays were made by all the guys this weekend. We saw some incredible backcourt work by Hector Ortiz, who grabbed 28 digs over the course of the six sets. And Noah Boschman continued his impressive first year campaign by averaging 6.33 points per set over the weekend. We now shift our focus to the next one and our lone match next weekend at home.”