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Ryerson women’s basketball beats cross-town rival York

By Josh Weinstein

The Ryerson women’s basketball team (8-3) matched up against one of their inter-city rivals the York Lions (2-8) on Wednesday night, defeating them 66-49.

In a game that saw the Rams turn the ball over an uncharacteristic 23 times, Ryerson was able to still pull out the victory with steady all around play from a trio of fourth years, Keneca Pingue-Giles, Maria Nunes, and Silvana Jez, along with first year forward Sofia Paska. All four players had double figure point totals for the game.

Although Pingue-Giles shot wasn’t falling in the first half, partly due to foul trouble, she found other ways to get involved in her team’s offensive schemes.

“I was on and off [the court] in the game so I couldn’t really get into my own kind of groove offensively, so when that happened I tried to get some steals on defense, look for my teammates, and get some more assists as well as steals,” she said.

The Rams came out in the second half with improved focus and forced York into committing 33 turnovers with strong defensive intensity. Additionally, the Rams looked a lot sharper on offense and were able to get the ball to wherever they wanted on the floor.

Ryerson head coach Carly Clarke thought her team was up and down on the offensive side of the ball tonight. “We didn’t nearly execute as well as we wanted to, but for the most part we did a good job of getting the ball into the paint and I think when we did that we got some pretty good shots,” she said.

Despite the team’s lackluster offensive execution against the Lions, the team’s swarming and energetic defense came through and helped get the win.

“Continuing to emphasize steals and rebounds everyday is important,” Clarke said. “I think our rebounding numbers were good today, but our rebounding percentages could be better.”

Ryerson leads the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) with 12.4 steals coming into the York game. That number is surely to rise after adding another 21 tonight.

“Our team’s steals are a credit to our athletes and aggressiveness, which are both keys to our defense,” Clarke said.

Pingue-Giles is also closing in on a milestone. With 10 more points, she will tie Ryerson assistant coach, Kaitlin Taylor-Asquini, for 10th all-time on the Ryerson women’s basketball scoring list. Pingue-Giles said that she was excited make it into the top-10 and that she hopes to get the achievement done in the team’s next game at Algamo on Friday.

 

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