(FREDERICTON, NB) The UNB Varsity Reds finished the AUS regular season with a bang, Saturday evening.

UNB downed the second place Acadia Axewomen 81-57, improving to 12-and-8 this season.

The win was the second of the weekend for the Varsity Reds, who beat UPEI on Friday. Both wins came in four point games.

Katelyn Mangold came off the bench to lead the Varsity Reds. She scored a game-high 15 points and pulled down 11 rebounds for the double-double, earning Subway player of the game honours.

"It's nice to have this and feel good going into playoffs," said Mangold. "But, we have to work a lot harder now too."

Chanel Smith scored 12 points to lead Acadia, while Lauren Jodrey added 11, off the bench.

The Axewomen fall to 16-and-4 with the loss, but hold on to second place in the AUS standings, and a first round bye in the AUS championship tournament.

Acadia head coach Len Harvey admits, while the outcome wasn't going to affect the standings, his team didn't play well.

"I'm not happy with how we performed tonight, at all," said Harvey. "We've got to find a little more guts and some composure and toughness. I think it's there, we've shown it for the first three quarters of the season, but we've got to find it again."

In comparison, Varsity Reds head coach Jeff Speedy was pleased with almost all aspects of his team's game.

""We defended well and we rebounded very, very well, and we seemed to have a lot of confidence on the offensive end," said Speedy.

"I don't know if there was a five minutes tonight that was off the charts good, but I think our body of work tonight was probably as solid a game as we've had, for sure."

An 11-0 run mid-way through the second quarter gave UNB a 29-13 lead.

The Varsity Reds led by 20… 41-21… at the half.

With about six minutes to play in the fourth quarter, a Caroline Healy lay-up and free throw pushed that lead to 30 points… 71-41.

All but one Varsity Red hit the scoresheet.

Kiley DeLong logged a game-high 14 rebounds.

Coach Speedy says the win over Acadia was important.

 "It was the only team we hadn't beaten in the AUS this year, so it was a bit of a rallying cry for us. Now we can go into the playoffs and all five teams there, we've beaten. Nobody else can say that."

The playoffs start Friday.

The Varsity Reds meet the UPEI Panthers in a re-match of last year's quarter-final, won by the Panthers.

Game time is 1:00PM, at the Scotiabank Centre, in Halifax.

The winner of that game will face the top-seeded Saint Mary's Huskies, in the semi-finals.

Acadia, the second seed, awaits the winner of the quarter-final match between Dalhousie and Cape Breton.