Tale of the Weekend
 
VICTORIA – It will be a battle of sixth and seventh this weekend when the UVic Vikes women's basketball team welcomes the Trinity Western University Spartans to the CARSA Performance Gym for a pair of games on January 27 and 28.
 
The weekend gets underway with a 6 pm tip-off on Friday night while the rematch is scheduled for 5 pm.
 
The Vikes and Spartans are side by side in the Canada West standings, occupying sixth and seventh in the conference respectively.
 
"We know it's going to be a fun, tightly fought weekend," said Vikes head coach Dani Sinclair. "It'll be tough and will have a big implication on where people are in the standings at the end of the weekend."
 
The two teams have battled often in Canada West play, including five times last season. A split in the regular season was followed up by the Vikes defeating the Spartans two games to one in the first round of the playoffs.
 
"They have become another big rival for us in the last few years," said Sinclair. "It's two teams that have grown since last year but are still very evenly matched and know each other pretty well."
 
Last Time Out
 
Both teams come into the weekend on a roll, the Vikes are winners of six straight to kick off 2017 while the Spartans have recorded three consecutive victories.
 
The Vikes took care of business against the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns last weekend, defeating the 'Horns by scores of 84-59 and 72-61.
 
Third-year guard Amira Giannattasio was lights out from the field on Friday night, scoring 30 points on seven-for-nine shooting from three-point range. While the game Saturday night didn't feature the same highlight reel material from the Vikes, they did manage to battle through to victory.
 
"Really good teams, especially in our league, are ones that find different ways to win," said Sinclair. "It's not going to be pretty sometimes, it's about grinding out some wins."
 
The Spartans picked up two straight wins over the University of Manitoba Bison last weekend, and set some school records in the process.
 
In a 70-65 win Friday night the team set a school-high record in rebounding with 55 total boards. They then went one better and set a school-high record for points in a 93-71 victory on Saturday night.
 
By the Numbers

18: The number of points per game third-year guard Tessa Ratzlaff is scoring for the Spartans, second overall in Canada West.
 
93: During their current six game win streak the Vikes have outscored the opposition by 93 points.
 
3: Only two teams in the conference have three players in the top 25 in points per game, TWU (Ratzlaff, Brown, Gordon) and UVic (Bugiardini, Giannattasio, Karstein)
 
Coach's Take
Dani Sinclair, Vikes head coach
 
 "The nature of our league is tough with playing teams back-to-back, teams will make adjustments and you're not always going to shoot the ball well on back-to-back nights."
 
 On the play of Tessa Ratzlaff
 
"She continues to get better and she's so active off the ball that you really do have to key in on her because she's very good at slashing, getting open and also offensively rebounding. So we will have to do a job and focus on her but she also has players around her that are very good too so it's going to take a full team effort."
 
Game Information
 
Friday, Jan. 27 – 6:00 p.m. – vs. Trinity Western Spartans, CARSA Performance Gym, Victoria B.C. –
Watch live on canadawest.tv
Buy tickets at govikesgo.com/tickets

Saturday, Jan. 28 – 5:00 p.m. – vs. Trinity Western Spartans, CARSA Performance Gym, Victoria B.C. – 
Watch live on canadawest.tv
Buy tickets at govikesgo.com/tickets


TWU Spartans (9-5)
U Sports National Ranking: N/A
Canada West Standings: 7
RPI: 0.5234
Last Week: 2-0
Streak: W 3
Last Canada West Title: N/A
Last CIS Title: N/A