It was another successful year for SFU women’s wrestling. The team had two national champions in Mallory Velte and Payten Smith, and three other top three finishes in Dominique Parrish, Nicole Depa, and Abby Lloyd, with Francesca Giorgio finishing fourth. As a whole, the team finished second in the standings.

“The girls wrestled really, really well,” said head coach Mike Jones, talking to The Peak. “Obviously there’s matches when you’re coaching, especially in an individual sport, where you’re never completely happy. You have some kids that really pull things out and win and some that slip a little bit. [. . .] The good thing is that the girls realise they could have won [the national championship] and are already jacked and excited for next year.”

Mallory Velte was, perhaps, the standout performer on this year’s team. She was to repeat in the 143-pound weight class, and as a junior, has a chance to go for the three-peat next season.

“I think she will,” said Jones when asked what her chances are at a third-straight national championship. “Mallory is at a point in her academic career where because she had an injury year that she could finish her degree. But I think she’s excited to come back and go for a third title. But more importantly, I think she wants to see the team win a title.”

Payten Smith was the other national champion, picking it up in the 191-pound weight class. She defeated the number one-ranked opponent, Paige Baynes, in a tight contest.

“It was kind of [a] last-minute effort that paid off,” said Jones on the match. “She got a nice throw and the girl hadn’t been in that situation all year. [. . .] [Payten] has been third, second, [and] first all year, so she’s in that mix. It just wasn’t a good match for her until the last 17 seconds. She’ll be back next year and she’s excited to improve.”

Dominique Parrish finished second in the 123-pound weight class in a tight match, and has the ability to become “one of the best we’ve ever had,” according to Jones. Nicole Depa also finished second in her weight class, and although she “didn’t fare too well in the final,” she was a runner-up for the second-straight year. Francesca Giorgio put in a inspirational performance, finishing third while battling with a hamstring injury.

Although this year was highly successful, Jones foresees an even better year next season with the wealth of returning talent the team will have at its disposal.

“If we can get three or four outstanding recruits, I seriously think it will be the best team SFU has fielded,” explained Jones. “The 2013 team was pretty special. We had an olympic champion and a world champion and two Canadian champions [. . .] It was a pretty solid team, but I actually think next year’s team will be that good.”

For the first two or three minutes of the second quarter, it looked like Western Washington was going to run away with the game. In two minutes, they took a two-point lead and made it a 13-point lead.

While there are always ebbs and flows in games — leads can expand and contract momentarily — it seemed like the makings of a blowout.

It was quite impressive to see SFU come back and make a competitive game out of it, even if it didn’t end up a win.

“We got some energy,” said head coach Bruce Langford. “We contested some of their shots and made it tough for them. And more importantly, we got rolling offensively.”

Rachel Fradgley and Sophie Swant put up much of the team’s points in this period. After the Vikings burst out to a 13-point lead, they only managed two more points — both off separate free throws — the entire quarter.

SFU went into halftime down only four, making the score 29–25.

While Western Washington got back to an eight-point lead in the third quarter, SFU’s comeback continued from there. Tayla Jackson led the charge, looking particularly dominant, putting up 11 of her season-high 13 points in the quarter. She has only hit double-digit points three previous times this year.

“She competed hard,” said Langford of the 6’3 centre, who transferred from NCAA Division I UC Irvine in the off-season. “It was her best game of the year, I thought, by far.”

“We didn’t shoot the ball very well, and if you don’t shoot the ball very well, you have little to no chance.”

Samantha Beauchamp put in a layup to tie the game and give SFU its first lead of the game since the opening two points by Fradgley. Fradgley put in another two to put SFU up by three. In the quarter, SFU dominated, putting up 24 points to the Vikings’ 17 while in the game, SFU led 49–46.

However, problems that had plagued the Clan all game came to a head in the fourth quarter.

SFU wasn’t good shooting the ball, going 25-for-67 (37.3%) from the field, and only had two three-pointers. Ellen Kett, who is normally one of SFU’s best shooters, struggled from the field, scoring only one field goal in 10 attempts, as did Elisa Homer, whose only points on the night came from a lone three-pointer.

“We got in foul trouble early,” explained Langford. “We just lost our composure there for a couple of seconds. We had two terrible floor shots, one from one of our best players, and when you have a four-point swing, and then you go down and have two terrible offensive possessions, that becomes seven points — that’s a challenge.”

Prior to the fourth, the calls were pretty even (SFU had 11 to Western Washington’s 12). SFU was handed nine fouls to Western Washington’s four. While SFU struggled in the fourth, Western Washington put up their most offensively potent quarter of the game, putting up 25 points (their other highest quarter was 17).

After being held off the scoresheet in the third quarter, Vikings star guard Taylor Peacocke — who in the last game against SFU put up 41 points — put up 11 points in the fourth quarter alone. She finished with 26 points.

“They’ve got three kids that can really score [Peacock, Kiana Gandy, and Tia Briggs], and the three kids scored,” said Langford. “We didn’t shoot the ball very well, and if you don’t shoot the ball very well, you have little to no chance.”

Jackson and Swant led SFU with 13 points, while Fradgley had 12 and Meg Wilson had 11. Despite struggling from the field, Kett was still productive, putting up 11 assists — her 13th game with double-digit assists is a Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) record — and six defensive rebounds.

“Despite our loss today, I think we maybe grew a bit and found out a little bit more about ourselves,” said Langford.

Having already clinched a playoff spot, the loss to Western Washington, who sits in second place, guarantees a third-place spot in the GNAC to SFU.

Next Game: Before returning home, the women’s basketball team has one last regular season road game. They face the Montana State Billings Yellowjackets this Saturday.

Statistically, the Yellowjackets are the worst team in the GNAC, with the worst scoring offence (59.5 points per game) and the second-worst scoring defence (they allow 71.2 points per game). That said, they still have five conference wins, including two in the last four games.

The last time these two teams met, SFU won 86–72 at home.

Tip-off is at 4:15 p.m.

There’s not a better advertisement for the men’s basketball team than this game.

In front of a standing-room-only crowd at the Whiteout game — the marketing department brought their A-game — the men’s basketball team followed one of their best efforts on Thursday (albeit ending in a heartbreaking loss), with their best game of the season.

And this time, they came out with the win.

“It’s weird how karma works out,” said head coach Steve Hanson. “You know, you’re in a similar situation late, [and] I was just like, this time we’re up five or six [. . .] let’s see if we can finish this off for once.”

“It’s about time,” said guard Kedar Wright, whose double-double with 19 points and 11 rebounds helped lead SFU to their first conference victory. SFU snapped a 19-game losing streak, as well as a 20-game conference game losing streak, a Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) record. It was also their first home conference win in almost two years, having last won against a GNAC opponent on February 12, 2015.

The thing is, it wasn’t against an easy opponent, either. The Western Oregon Wolves are third in the conference, and last year, made the Division II Final Four.

SFU started the game out with some good energy, scoring five straight points to start off the game, and holding Western Oregon off the board for nearly four minutes with some solid defensive rebounding.

Gibran Sewani, who received his fifth consecutive start, was particularly noticeable, putting up some rebounds and points.

“This is Gibran’s senior year, I know how important it is for him to get minutes and some key playing time. I find he just starts off the game really well for us,” said Hanson. “Gibran gives us big plays at times and he wins the jump ball every game.”

The big play this game? A crowd-pleasing dunk that set the tone for the rest of the game for the Clan’s fourth and fifth points.

By the five-minute mark, SFU had built up a 10–2 lead. However, a series of poor shot choices, and an inability to get to the scoring areas, led to long periods of no scoring for SFU and a Western Oregon comeback. However, the longest stretch without scoring, 3:26, was suffered by both teams.

By the half, the Wolves were up 32–27.

The story of the game — and the second-half comeback — was rebounding.

“Rebounding’s all effort,” said Hanson after the win. It’s something he’s said before, usually as a negative, but it was anything but Thursday night.

SFU had more offensive rebounds than they did defensive, with 21 to 18. From their own side of the court, SFU was adept at stopping second-chance points — surrendering only six — while on the offensive, the Clan managed 19 second-chance points.

“I am just real[ly] happy for our guys, I mean, we’ve said it all season: they’ve been grinding hard even after tough losses.”

– Steve Hanson, head coach

And Wright wasn’t the only player with a double-double. Iziah Sherman-Newsome was a master of collecting rebounds and making the other team pay for it. With 11 rebounds — seven of them offensive — Sherman-Newsome put up 17 points.

SFU tied the game up at 46–46 pretty much at the halfway point of the second half. Western Oregon scored six straight points in response.

But it was clear that SFU was getting in the Wolves’ heads. Their star forward, Tanner Omlid, who leads the conference in steals and is 14th in GNAC scoring, was forced out of the game after taking his fifth foul with nine minutes to go.

SFU faced a similar dilemma with Michael Provenzano, who had taken four fouls, and whose scoring touch would be needed down the stretch. He subbed out about 30 seconds after Omlid left the game, and sat on the bench for 5:03 before coming back on for the rest of the game.

“We were kind of thinking the same thing with Mike; do we leave him in? But we just made a sound decision, get Mike out,” explained Hanson.

Hidde Vos claimed the lead for SFU with a three to put them up by one. While Western Oregon did tie it up immediately after, SFU didn’t trail thereafter.

SFU won with a shortened bench. Vinnie Safin, Bowen Bakken, Graham Miller, Aleks Vranjes, and Bongani Moyo did not receive any minutes. Othniel Spence played only eight minutes — none in the second half — while Andrew Williamson played only three.

“We only played nine guys tonight, so the crowd really helped guys that had a lot of minutes get through things,” said Hanson. “I am just real[ly] happy for our guys, I mean, we’ve said it all season: they’ve been grinding hard even after tough losses.”

While the win was great — and it was great — one of the best things to come out of the weekend was a sense of progress. This didn’t feel like a one-off fluke win. Those were two close games, games that arguably should have been wins, and they weren’t just against bad teams who were playing badly.

That’s not to say the rest of the schedule is going to be filled with wins. But it’s good knowing that, in a season where wins aren’t plentiful, they do seem to be trending upwards.

“There’s certainly been a progression. We’re a totally different team from the beginning of the season. There’s certainly been growth. We’re definitely building some cohesion,” said Wright. “[We’re] just sharing the ball more.”

“I think guys [are] just sticking to what the coach is saying, and the coaches have been doing an awesome job. For us to be playing the best basketball we’ve played all year, through all the trials and tribulations, says a lot about the coaching,” said Sherman-Newsome.

Next Game: SFU will try and keep the momentum going with a game against Northwest Nazarene on Thursday.

Northwest Nazarene are a fairly low-scoring team, ranking third-last in scoring offence, and averaging 75.2 points per game. In the matchup at home earlier this season, SFU lost by only six points by score of 80–74, when a valiant second-half comeback bid fell just short.

Tip-off is at 6 p.m. Thursday.