Cascades own middle two quarters in Heat loss

Second-year Coquitlam native Jessica Jazdarehee nets team-high 10 in rough ouster to the Cascades. (Photo by Heat Athletics)

Women’s Basketball (Canada West conference play)

Friday, January 24, 2014 SCHEDULE & RESULTS | BOX SCORE

Envision Athletics Centre, Abbotsford, B.C.

KELOWNA, B.C. -

Despite a strong defensive showing in the first quarter, one of the top offenses in the league proved too much to handle as the Fraser Valley Cascades turned the UBC Okanagan Heat women’s basketball team over 30 times to earn a 66-31 victory in Abbotsford Friday night.

It was a duo of young Heat players doing the bulk of the scoring work tonight, as second-year guard Jessica Jazdarehee (Coquitlam, BC) led all Heat scorers with 10 and rookie Shenelle Tamminen (Calgary, AB) continued her upward climb this second-half of the season with seven points and seven rebounds in 18 minutes of floor time.

The Heat’s Heather Semeniuk had nearly all of her players play in excess of ten minutes as the coaching staff tried different strategies against the physically imposing Cascades. Unfortunately, the size and length of their opponents prevented the Heat from getting much to happen in the interior, allowing the Cascades defense to key in on the Heat shooters and stymie UBC Okanagan’s game plan.

Starting backcourt duo Emily Kanester (Vernon, BC) and Sarah Allison (South Surrey, BC) weren’t able to score close to their season averages despite their heroic defensive efforts on the Cascades’ backcourt. Kanester had three points and three assists while both players played less than half the game.

“We started off playing such good defense,” Heather Semeniuk explains how her team held the high scoring Cascades to just 14 first quarter points. They also finished the game playing strong defense allowing only ten fourth quarter points. It was the middle two quarters that saw UFV go wild, completing a combined 42 point stretch to the Heat’s 13.

The Heat were virtually suffocated on offense all night long, held to 15 first half points and never scoring more than ten in a period. As a team the Heat were 23.4% from the floor. Undersized, they lost the battle of the boards 31-26 and gave up 20 points in the paint, 15 of which were off of second chances.

Semeniuk could add only that they “struggled so much on offense” and that the Cascades did a great job limiting the Heat’s chances. “They are a really good team and I give them all the credit, they are playing really well right now. We will have to regroup and adjust; tomorrow we have to play them again.”

Forward Sarah Wierks had a virtuoso performance that gave the Heat a lot of trouble in the paint as she went for a game-high 15 points while collecting a game-tying seven rebounds. Backcourt trio of Aieisha Luyken, Kayli Sartori and Celeste Dyck dished up ten assists combined. Luyken took over in the second half en route to her nine points and four rebounds to go along with her three assists.

The Heat are now 3-12 while the Cascades move up to 11-4 to create some space between the trailing UBC Thunderbirds (10-5) and Victoria Vikes (10-5) atop the Pacific. The two teams will meet again Saturday night at 5 p.m. at the Envision Athletics Centre to conclude their back-to-back weekend matchup.