The Championship Opens
For the first time since 2009 the Mariners and Falcons meet in the post season
The PACWEST basketball Championships open on Thursday at 1:00pm in the women’s bracket when the defending champion and #3 seeded VIU Mariners face the #6 seeded Langara Falcons.
In the seasonal series the Mariners won two of the three meetings with an average victory of 31 points. The Falcons won the last meeting at VIU by four.
The Mariners shot 32% from the field in the series while the Falcons shot 23%. The most glaring difference in the series was turnovers; the Mariners coughed up the ball 44 times and the Falcons an incredible 74.
Oddly enough the last time the Falcons won a playoff game was in 2009 when they beat the Mariners in a quarterfinal.
The winner of this game will move onto face the #2 seeded Douglas College Royals in Friday’s semi-final.
Last playoff meeting: March 5, 2009 – Falcons 58-47
Head to Head in 2016-2017 – Mariners 2 – Falcons 1
#3 VIU Mariners
PACWEST Record – 10-8
Home 4-5, Road 6-3
Points Per Game – 59.1
Field Goal % - 33.2%
Leader: #4 Sienna Pollard: Last year’s Player of the Year finished third in PACWEST scoring averaging 15.5 points a game and shot 31.8% from the field. She also finished second in PACWEST rebounds averaging just over nine a game. Pollard took a team high 280 shots and started all 18 games.
#6 Langara Falcons
PACWEST Record – 6-12
Home 3-8, Road 3-4
Points Per Game – 56.1
Field Goal % - 33%
Leader: #11 Nicola Erricson: Named a member of the PACWEST All-Rookie Team. For just a rookie, she was outstanding this season shooting 32% from the field and averaged 9.4 points game. She started all 18 games and played the second most minutes on her team.