LANGLEY — Shaylyn Crisp scored on the first two shots of her CIS career, but the pure freshman from Victoria’s Claremont Secondary saved her best for last, capturing the moment in her team’s Canada West debut under new head coach Rich Chambers on Friday at the Langley Events Centre.
Crisp’s rapid-trigger three-point make from the baseline corner with 91 seconds remaining finally made the difference, putting the visiting Vikes up by five points on the their way to an uneven 82-73 win over the Trinity Western Spartans.
“It feels good to get this win and I thought we showed a lot of character,” said Chambers, whose team led by 11 points (70-59) with 7:51 remaining but then gave up an 11-0 run over a span of just over three minutes to TWU, which tied the game 70-70 on a baseline jumper by its marquee transfer, former Simon Fraser post star Laurelle Weigl. “But then a freshman stepped up and she hit a big three.”
Crisp was one of five Vikes to hit double digits in scoring on the night, but her poise seemed to be a direct carryover from last March when she was a high school Spartan.
“Last year her team finishes second at the B.C. championships,” reminded Chambers. “The year before her team won the B.C. high school soccer championships. She knows how to win.”
For much of Friday, it looked like neither team really knew how, or at least wanted to, each taking turns building and losing momentum.
The Spartans, however, have the makings of a truly effective twin towers tandem in Weigl and holdover Tiffany Olsen.
Amazingly, they got off to a ghastly start, Olsen missing her first nine shots from the field before hitting her next five straight. In the third quarter, the pair combined to score all 25 of the Spartans points. In the end, Olsen finished with 24 points while Weigl finished with 20, the pair combining to go 19-of-36 from the field after a combined 0-for-12 start.
The post pair got in a good a groove in the third quarter, helping TWU rally from an 11-point second-quarter deficit by scoring all 25 of the Spartans points.
Olsen’s layin off a Weigl in the third tied the score at 42-42 and brought Trinity Western back from an earlier 11-point deficit. Olsen returned the favour on the Spartans’ next series, finding Weigl for a layin that put TWU up 44-42.
Victoria put together a 9-2 run to build their lead back to five at 51-46. But after that Weigl (eight points) and Olsen (two) went on to score TWU’s final 10 points of the third. A late Yeboah basket had the Vikes leading 58-56 heading into the fourth quarter.
Crisp came off the bench midway through the opening quarter and scored on her first two CIS field goal attempts. First, she hit a medium-range jumper to snap a 7-0 Spartans’ run and put her team ahead 13-10, then drove at the heart of the TWU defence, drawing contact and stepping to the free throw line to complete a three-point play for an 18-14 lead.
Vikes point guard Debbie Yeboah led the winners with 24 points, while wing Jessica Renfrew added 14, forward Chelsea McMullen 13 and guard Cassandra Goodis 12.
The same two teams are set to meet again on Saturday
