WOLFVILLE, N.S. - The Axewomen basketball team shook the monkey off their back and picked up their first win of the young regular season, improving to 1-2 on a convincing 68-48 win over the Dalhousie Tigers in Acadia's season home opener.
Senior forward Abbey Duinker, named the Subway Player of the Game, netted her season high of 22 points and added 11 rebounds - 8 of which were important defensive rebounds. Head Coach Bev Greenlaw was pleased with the team's outing, noting Abbey's performance. "Abbey Duinker is beginning to play at the level we believe she is capable of every night out, and we need her to play at that stellar level in order to compete with the teams in our league".
Acadia took quick 17-7 lead after a quarter of play, highlighted by first year forward Katie Ross' three point shot that extended the lead to 15-4 late in the first frame.
By halftime, the Axewomen doubled the Tiger's output, posting a 30-15 halftime lead. Holding onto a lead for the entire game, Acadia pushed the lead to a game high 24 points with just under four minutes remaining in the third quarter. Katie Ross once again sank a three pointer to give Acadia a 47-24 with 3:55 remaining in the third frame. Ross was 3-6 from the three point line and had 14 points in 29 minutes of play.
In the closing minutes of the game, Acadia pushed back to a 23 point lead after losing some ground early in the fourth. Of the Axewomen's starting five players, three were first year athletes including dual-athlete Katie Ross, Emily MacLeod and Maire Burke. Second year point guard Maya Mucatumpag, who replaces the injured Rita Sibo, had four assists and three points. MacLeod and Burke each had 11 points while MacLeod had the second most rebounds with seven.
Dalhousie's Tessa Stammberger had a team high points while teammate Rebecca Nuttall added nine for the losing cause. The Tigers had a disappointing 18.8% field goal percentage in the first half and improved to 32% in the second. Dalhousie had a 33 point second half compared to only 15 points in the opening half.
Greenlaw pointed out that his team had good offensive performance. "We made a higher percentage of our shots tonight primarily because we got better shots than we have been getting up to this point of our season. We also achieved a season-low in turnovers, which means that we actually got to shoot the ball", adding, "We thought our kids worked extremely hard tonight to try to execute on defense. We continue to be very disappointed with our team rebounding, and this will continue to be a point of emphasis for the remainder of the season. On the other hand, we have been working season-long to overcome certain offensive failings, and our kids did much better in those aspects of the game tonight".
Acadia picked up 27 points off of turnovers versus Dalhousie's ten, but the Tigers had 12 second chance points and 11 points off the bench compared to Acadia's four and seven.
The Axewomen travel to Halifax this Saturday evening to take on the Tigers in a back-to-back series against Dalhousie.