By Chris Sanders
It was a statement win for the Ryerson Rams women’s basketball team on Nov. 8, improving their home record to 4-0 and taking down the undefeated Windsor Lancers 69-52 in comfortable fashion at the Mattamy Athletic Centre.
On paper, the matchup was a contest between two strong Ontario University Athletics teams, each boasting a top-five offensive and defensive rating in the conference.
The game was set to be a playoff calibre matchup.
“We always know that Windsor is going to be a tough game and their very physical,” said Rams forward Bin-Edward. “Making sure that we were able to bring that physicality first; so defensively, getting steals and make sure there’s ball pressure.”
Bin-Edward finished the night with 15 points, three blocks on 6-7 shooting from the field.
In what was an offensive shootout to start the game, with both teams combining for six triples in the opening five minutes, physical defence was also on full display.
A tightly contested first quarter, the Rams pulled away late with a 5-0 run to grab a 17-12 heading into the second quarter.
The Rams offence in the first half included a plethora of threes, which was part of their gameplan in order to prevent Windsor’s forward Olivia Osamusali from interfering with their offence.
“They have a very talented big in Olivia…so we wanted to make sure she didn’t own the paint; [so] we could still attack,” said Rams guard Hayley Robertson. “We did like to get her a little bit away from the rim and we had success with it.”
Rams forward Bronwyn Williams scored nine of her team’s 20 points in the second quarter, finding her rhythm early on to jumpstart their offence as they had 10-point lead to close the half.
Williams poured in 15 points and six rebounds on 6-10 shooting in 20 minutes of action.
While rebounding has been an area of focus for Ryerson, they did outrebound the Lancers 22-21 in the first half.
But despite winning the battle on the glass for half of the game, the Rams did give up 28 of the Lancer’s 49 rebounds in the second half.
“I thought we did a great job of controlling [their shots] for a good portion of the game,” said Clarke. “I don’t know if the offensive rebounds were after three quarters. We gave up way too many in the fourth quarter.”
Tight defence in the third quarter, saw the Rams limit the Lancers to just four points during an eight-minute stretch. In that span, the Rams would score 18 points.
It was their biggest run of the game as they made sure that whenever a Windsor player drove to the basket, they were met with a wall of blue and gold jerseys.
“Windsor was just ranked in the top 10 last week so beating them by a fair amount gives our team a lot of confidence going into this season,” said Bin-Edward.
With the 17-point win, the Rams improved to 4-1 on the season as they’ll begin a three-game road trip.
UP NEXT: The Rams will travel to the Tait Mckenzie Centre to face the York Lions in their second meeting of the season on Nov 16
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