NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN Katelyn Rozdeba, of the Medicine Hat Rattlers, rises up for a shot during an Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference women's basketball game against the St. Mary's Lightning on Saturday at the Snake Pit.
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
The Medicine Hat Rattlers women’s basketball team will be focusing on what they did right in the third quarter of Saturday’s 77-57 loss to the St. Mary’s Lightning at the Snake Pit.
After trailing 51-28 at the half, Medicine Hat responded by outscoring St. Mary’s 17-9 in the third. While the Lightning rallied to lock up the win in the fourth, Rattlers head coach Clayton Nielsen says he’ll be preaching the positives to his young squad with two games left in the regular season.
“In the third quarter we showed that we can play,” said Nielsen, whose Rattlers slipped to 10-9 but still hold fourth in the ACAC South. “If we’re aggressive and we do things right, we’re right there with the best teams. But because we’re so young, we’re just inconsistent and they just don’t learn that what they do that works, they’ve got to keep doing it.”
Katelyn Rozdeba led the Rattlers with a 22-point, 14-rebound double-double Saturday, while guard Morgan Muir added 16 points and five boards, but it wasn’t enough to knock St. Mary’s off a nine-game winning streak.
Emily Wagner powered the Lightning to the victory with 27 points in a 10-for-17 performance from the field. Juhee Anderson followed up with 21 points, while St. Mary’s finished with a total of 19 steals. They now sit second in the ACAC South with a 13-5 record.
“They’re just so athletic,” said Nielsen. “We’re trying to match that and we don’t have the firepower yet to match a team like that.”
The Rattlers close out the regular season with a home-and-home set against the Trojans, starting Friday night at SAIT before welcoming the ACAC’s best to the Snake Pit for a shot at nationals.
“I think it’s awesome that we can host it at home,” said Rozdeba. “We have a lot of people that are from Medicine Hat and we have a really good crowd. I think that really helps us win our games.”
Nielsen added he’s hoping his young group can ride a wave of energy and momentum provided by the Snake Pit’s raucous atmosphere, as they’ll be in tough to open the tournament on March 5 against either the Keyano Huskies (19-3) or Lakeland Rustlers (16-4).
“I’m hoping they can feed off the adrenaline of that, so at least our energy level doesn’t drop.
Hopefully they’ll just will us to be better. That’s what we’ll need in that first game because we’ll play a tough team from the North. It’ll be Keyano or Lakeland and they’re not looking to travel all the way down here to lose the first game. We’ve got to beat them in order to go forward.”
Men’s basketball
Medicine Hat College’s men’s basketball team dropped a 106-84 contest to St. Mary’s to close out Saturday’s doubleheader at the Snake Pit.
Caleb Jipp led the Lightning with a 40-point performance that included a 6-for-7 effort from outside the arc. Jordan Britton added 20 points, while Ryan Morck and Johnpaul Okodua both finished with double-doubles to leave the Lightning with an 8-10 record.
Medicine Hat’s Kieron Burgess posted a double-double of his own with 18 points and 14 rebounds, while Josh Magpantay had 14 points and Zavier Croft added 11 from the bench.
The Rattlers slipped to 4-15 with the loss.
Women’s volleyball
The Medicine Hat Rattlers women’s volleyball team had its losing streak pushed to eight games with a three-set loss to the Ambrose Lions (25-17, 25-22, 25-19) on Saturday evening in Calgary.
Megan Hoeber led Medicine Hat with six kills in the loss, while Jennifer Saj added 18 assists and Brooke Christie dug out nine on defence.
Ashleigh Wolensky finished with a match-high 13 kills to help push Ambrose to 14-8 with their fourth straight win. Sarah Janz posted 33 assists and Journey Flewell led the defence with nine digs.
Medicine Hat fell to 8-14 with the loss. They sit tied with the Lethbridge Kodiaks for fourth in the ACAC South, but already own a playoff berth as hosts of the championship tournament at the end of the month.
Men’s volleyball
The Rattlers men’s volleyball team completed a weekend sweep of the Lions to close out Saturday’s action in Calgary.
Dexter Mackie, Justice Lesuk and Aleksa Zivic each added eight kills to lead Medicine Hat to the five-set victory (25-17, 25-19, 17-25, 19-25, 15-8). Ethan Harder set up 34 and Ty Moline dug out seven to help push the Rattlers to 6-16.
Nicholas Jabusch led the Lions with 13 kills in the loss. Aiden McMillan added 21 assists and Carter McLenahan had 12 digs. Ambrose slipped to 1-21 with the loss.
Medicine Hat College’s volleyball teams close out the regular season with a pair of games at Red Deer College on Friday and Saturday.
