After picking up their first victory of the season Friday night at the Richard J. Currie Center against CBU, the Varsity Reds women’s basketball team looked to sweep the weekend Saturday afternoon at home.
 
The V-Reds would fall short of the sweep, losing 78-63 to CBU on Saturday after their 70-65 win on Friday night.
 
Although the team lost by 15, they were neck and neck with the Capers, trailing by four points at halftime, 37-33.
 
CBU would open up the third quarter, followed by UNB’s Emma Russell and Clair Colborne pulling them to within two.
 
The Capers would go on a 6-0 run before Colborne hit the next UNB basket. After trading baskets, CBU would go on a 4-0 and 9-0 runs to take a 16 point lead. The Varsity Reds would trail 62-48 after three quarters.
 
In the fourth quarter the V-Reds would lose the quarter by a point, 16-15, and the game 78-63.
 
Jordan Holstein would lead the team in the final quarter with six points, while Colborne fouled out of the game.
 
UNB head coach Jeff Speedy believes Friday night’s game was the longest his team has played well in one game so far this season.
 
“We had a couple games in October where maybe we didn’t play 40 minutes that good, but we certainly played 30 or 35 minutes that well,” he said. “I thought last night was the closest we came to playing 40 minutes all year, so I guess from that standpoint it’s probably the longest we’ve played that well.”
 
Having their first victory followed by a loss to the same team, the defensive systems seemed to shut down in the third quarter. This is something Speedy is still wondering as to what happened.
 
“I’m not sure,” said Speedy. “We’ve had a tough term, we’ve had a lot of losses. We’ve had two funerals and we’ve just had a tough term. I’m not sure if what you saw today was just literally all we had left in the tank or not.”
 
“For all of our rookies this is length of their entire season where they play high school. I think the defence you saw today was either a tired team or a team that hasn’t quite figured out the extra effort that it takes on the defensive end to get stops. So I’m not sure if I’m disappointed or if I’m a realist, maybe that’s the best we could do today.”
Speedy knows that they need to improve on this if they want to pick up some wins down the road.
 
“Definitely the defensive effort we had today wasn’t enough to beat a good basketball team and hopefully we’ve learned from that.”