The No. 2 University of B.C. T-birds settled for silver in a 69-53 loss to the No. 3 Windsor Lancers in the CIS women's basketball championship final at the Jack Simpson Gymnasium in Calgary on Monday night.
Windsor led by four points at the start of the fourth quarter but outscored the T-Birds 18-6 to pull away and claim their second straight Bronze Baby trophy.
"We struggled particularly in the fourth quarter," UBC head coach Deb Huband said in a release from the university. "I think we panicked as a group and didn't execute very well offensively and couldn't put very many points up. I thought we did a pretty good job defending, once we stopped taking away the three ball. But we just didn't execute very well offensively and a lot of that is credit to their defence, they put a lot of pressure on us and they battled hard as well."
Kitsilano grad and city championship all-star Adrienne Parkin averaged 12 minutes in seven playoff games as a first-year forward with the T-Birds. In three Final 8 tournament games in Calgary this weekend, she played 17 minutes in a quarterfinal against McGill and was good on one of three attempts from outside. She had three points, two assists and four rebounds in the 65-43 win.
Against Windsor in the final, Parkins one bucket was opportune. After more than seven minutes without a score in the second quarter, she drove the lane and broke the drought with a lay-up.
UBC went on a 17-5 run to draw within one point of the Lancers but could not overtake the dominant Windsor team.
Kris Young led UBC with 16 points and eight rebounds. Zara Huntley recorded 13 points and seven boards in her final game as a Thunderbird.
Alex Vieweg, chipped in with 11 points.
"We got really stagnant and couldn't get a shot to fall," said Vieweg. "We tried to take some early threes at the end to get shots up with time running down but we took unbalanced shots and just got unlucky."
Windsor's Miah-Marie Langlois was named the CIS Final 8 Most Valuable Player for the second year in a row and led her team with 17 points, 10 rebounds and six assists in the Lancers championship win.
UBC finished the season with a CIS silver medal, a Canada West championship and an overall record of 28-6. Three starters return to the roster next season.
UBC last won the Bronze Baby in 2008.
Twitter: @MHStewart
