On Saturday, February 21, the Varsity Blues took on the Ryerson Rams in the women’s basketball playoffs. The contest between the Toronto rivals was an intense affair, befitting a playoff game. However, this was not how the game started. Ryerson came to the Athletic Centre to harass the heavily-favoured Blues to stop them from progressing to the semifinals.
The Rams used the full court press from the get go. But the Blues seemed to be the quicker and fresher of the two teams, managing to spring the traps, and find the open player at will. Blues point guard Sherri Pierce was a second faster than any of the Rams guards, leading the fast breaks to a deadly effect. To make matters worse for Ryerson, they were unable to cope with the height advantage of the Blues players. The Blues pulled down fifteen more rebounds than Ryerson in the first half, and completely dominated the low post.
Blues player of the game Tara Kinnear converted lay-up after lay-up, as she shot an astounding seventy five per cent from the field. She ended the half with 17 points and nine boards. The presence of Toronto’s post players meant that points were hard to come by for Ryerson, relying on the erratic outside shooting of Lisa Goldring. The Rams were timid, and allowed themselves to be bullied by their much larger neighbours.
Whatever Ryerson head coach Sandy Pothier told the girls at half-time motivated them, as a different team emerged from the dressing room. Maybe she pointed out the 41-24 score line and reminded the team that this was a playoff game. Suddenly, the Rams shined brighter and became aggressive. Lacey O’Sullivan’s hard foul on Toronto’s Pierce was an indication of what to expect in the second half. Ryerson packed the paint and forced Toronto’s guards to take shots. Any time Nicki Schutz or Kinnear touched the ball the Rams surrounded them, as they hacked and harassed the two down to a manageable size.
The referees either forgot that basketball is a non-contact sport, or embraced the idea of a playoff game not for the fainthearted. The pace of the game slowed down, because of the foul trouble that had benched Toronto’s starting point guard. The Rams forced Toronto to play their style of hoops. The home fans, quiet for much of the night, began to get increasingly frustrated each time a body hit the floor, and no whistle followed.
With 8:24 left in the third quarter, Blues player Nicki Schutz had her face squished into the ground and was lucky to escape with a cut on the bridge of her nose. A concerned mother in the crowd implored the referees to bring some order to the game. Along with the hard play, the Rams found their shooting. They hit five three pointers in the quarter, and one of them was a four point play. The quarter ended 59-53.
The Blues were leading, but they had been outscored 29-18 in the third quarter.
The Rams’ momentum did not stop in the fourth. The referees found their whistles and started calling fouls, but inconsistently. With six minutes and thirty seconds left in the game, the Rams took the lead for the first time since their first basket with a three pointer. The Rams shot an impressive 57 per cent from beyond the arc in the second half. That was when the Blues Nicki Schutz decided to take over the game.
When asked what she did differently in the second half, Schutz replied, “I was being double and tripled team the whole game. In the first half, I think I had to try and find the open man. In the playoffs, it’s not going to be about the top two, it’s going to be about three, four, and five scoring those extra 10-20 points.”
With four Blues starters in double digits, that plan was executed. In regards to her ten points in the final quarter, Schutz said, “I just got aggressive [and] took it to them.” With 2:53 on the clock, the Blues wrestled the lead back from the Rams, and Schutz made sure not to give it back. Toronto won the game 78-69.
