Vancouver, British Columbia - This weekend the Birds head up to play the Heat! It should be a winning weekend as both heat teams are toward the bottom of the league standings with (1-5) records. The UBCO men’s team is last in the league in points per game and the women are 14th. The last time these teams met the Thunderbirds spared no mercy with wins of 100-29 and 103-69 in the men’s matchup and 69-51 and 87-57 in the women’s at War Memorial Gym.
The stories of the season so far have been Keylyn Filewich and Jadon Cohee. With Maddison Penn out of the lineup (Back Injury), Filewich has taken the reigns of this team. Keylyn is 4th in the league in scoring at 18.5ppg and 5th in rebounds at 10rpg. She will have to work on keeping down the turnovers as the Thunderbirds have been getting the ball to her early in the halfcourt offence and team’s are doubling fast. The men’s primary ball handler last season was Mason Bourcier - but this year Bourcier is gone and it’s been his backcourt mate Jadon Cohee who has taken up the point guard mantle. His 18ppg is good for 11th in the league, but the shock comes with his spectacular playmaking at 5.8apg which puts him at 2nd in the CanadaWest.
The coaches shared some thoughts on the upcoming matchup:
Huband: “The Heat are a young team that plays with grit and they're actually the number one offensive rebounding team in Canada West (22.3 per game) and the second best overall rebounding team in the conference (49.8 per game). We expect them to play with energy and not give anything away easily as they represent on home court."
Hanson: “I'm expecting it to be an emotional series with Kelowna native Grant Shepard coming home, he'll be excited to play there and obviously the connection between the two schools obviously there is always an underlying rivalry within the two programs.”
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