Overtime loss seals fate for Lions

Lewis Chaitov
Staff Writer
This was one of those must-win games of the season. The York Lions women’s basketball team, fourth place in the east division with a 5-8 record, needed to play their best to keep their advantage over the Ryerson Rams in the standings and make sure there was no chance of the team catching up.

What the audience got was a 73-71 overtime loss Jan. 15 where the Lions underestimated their rival and let them get ahead too early in the game.
Unfortunately, Ryerson was up 39-20 by the time the second quarter ended, the result of a disorganized York team that didn’t focus on defence. Their foolish mistakes and misses for the basket prevented the Lions from gaining any sort of advantage.
In the last half of the match, though, the team came around; York captain Brittany Szockyj made consistent three-pointers, but, during overtime, that consistency stopped, costing the Lions a win that might’ve ended their two-game losing streak.
What it came down to was the Lions failing to find the basket when they needed to, and though top scorer Nadia Qahwash added 25 points to the score, it just wasn’t enough to overtake the Rams.
Point guard Kayla Pangos believed the loss had to do with the team’s energy. “It didn’t seem that we had the energy in the first half like we had in the second half,” said Pangos after the game.
Ryerson Rams head coach Charles Kissi came in with huge expectations for his team and made sure his team executed their best.
“I said to our team before the game, ‘Being on the road is a great opportunity to show your char- acter. Your fans are not here – it’s your team and nobody else.’ Basically they just came in and played hard,” said Kissi.
The big difference that night was the Rams had different players stepping up at different times, something the Lions have been struggling with for a while.