It was a tough weekend for the Providence Pilots women’s basketball team on the road in North Dakota. On January 20, they lost to the Trinity Bible College (TBC) Lions 60–106, and the next day they fell again 64–87.
Head coach Joel Coursey explains that the Pilots were missing two key players for the games. Then, early in game two, the team captain sustained an injury.
“From a distance, the weekend may look like a bad dream, but it was far from,” says Coursey. “We proved to ourselves that we could compete with one of the top teams in our conference after a 46-point loss. The point spread is deceiving to our style of play. We could lose by 40 and come back and win the next day, depending if we play our game or not. It’s high risk, high reward, and a blast to play. I think when we are at full strength, we are starting to become a nightmare to play against, and we like it that way.”
The Pilots will face the Université de Saint-Boniface (USB) on Tuesday, January 24 before a pair of important Northern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (NIAC)/Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference (MCAC) games against the Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) Blazers this coming weekend.
The men’s basketball team fought TBC as well last weekend, pulling off a 93–83 win, then losing the second game 70–88.
The men’s team ran a limited rotation of players due to injuries, but their coach, Pierre Dubreuil, says that they showed up to play hard.
Dubreuil credits part of the team’s win to first year point huard Ilijah Roque (24 points, two assists, two steals).
As for the second game, Dubreuil says, “We come out of this weekend stronger and confident that the team is moving in the right direction.”
The team now enters a busy week of MCAC action, first at USB on January 24 before a pair of games at home against the CMU Blazers.
The women’s volleyball team had a bang-up weekend with back-to-back wins against CMU. On January 20, they finished with a 3–1 score, and the next day they prevailed again 3–2.
“Our team saw a big turnaround this weekend with big results against CMU,” says head coach Kyle Guenther. “We had a great week of practice leading up to a home-and-home series with the Blazers. We had a game plan and executed it really well all weekend. It was a real character win in five great sets. These results will give us confidence as we play a tough USB team this coming weekend and going forward as well.”
The men’s volleyball team had a rough first game against CMU last weekend, losing 0–3, but turned it around the next day defeating the Blazers 3–0.
Men’s coach Cody Quiring gives kudos to Noah Boschman’s 16 kills and Austin Anderson’s 33 assists in game one.
In game two, Quiring says, the team came out firing.
“Our first contact systems were executed at a much higher rate, led by an outstanding 2.8 passing average from Hector Ortiz, who also added a gritty 12 digs in the match,” Quiring says. “Noah Boschman once again added a big 16 kills [and] six more aces to his nation leading ace per set tally for the season. Avery Bergmann went six kills on seven attempts alone in the third set to help close out the match.”
The Pilots will face the USB Les Rouges in a pair of away games this coming weekend.
The women’s futsal team had a tremendous weekend with a 6–5 win against CMU on January 22 and an 8–3 win against Brandon University (BU) the same day.
“This was a really great week of work by our team,” says head coach Tory Walker. “Again, they continue to surprise me with their great work ethic and a willingness to learn and grow, both as players and as a team. This team is special, and we continue to get better as players and as a team and the results this weekend showed that.”
The men’s Futsal team tied CMU on January 22 by a score of 2–2 only to then lose a heartbreaker to the BU Bobcats 3–4.
“[It was] another tough weekend where we felt we could have and should have won both games,” says their coach, Mo Cato. “Instead we walked away with one point. The good news is that we played really well in both games. But unfortunately, we also made a few costly mistakes and didn’t capitalize on some really good scoring opportunities.”
Both the men’s and women’s futsal teams have this week off to prepare for the second half of the MCAC futsal season.
