Women’s basketball wins big
By Davie Wong, Sports Editor
Week three of PACWEST Basketball action featured the Columbia Bible College Bearcats strolling into town to play the Douglas College Royals. Right from the warmup, you could see a distinct difference in the teams. In particular, the number of players warming up was quite the differentiator. While 12 players and extras lined up for the Royals, the Bearcats had a mere 8.
Although the depth of the Royals lineup wouldn’t become relevant until later in the game, the skill gap between the two teams was evident right from the start. And I literally mean from the start. The Royals went on an offensive tear to start the game, racking up 18 points before surrendering a single basket to the Bearcats.
The home squad would grab another 14 points on the quarter to finish with 32, while only allowing the Bearcats 8 points of their own. The second quarter was much slower compared to the first. While the Bearcats ramped up the offensive pressure, the Royals took a scale back on the scoring to take care of things on their end. As the game spun out of control, the players on the floor started changing. Slowly but surely, the Royals starting lineup was rotated out of the game. By the end of the first half, the Royals held a 35 point lead, with most of their bench playing.
The second half saw CBC surge back into the game early. But after a couple of substitutions and a timeout to give Steve Beauchamp a chance to help his team regroup, it was like it never happened. The Royals never looked like they were even remotely close to losing control of the game. At the end of the third quarter, the Royals had 48 points more than the Bearcats, bringing down a total of 75 points. By the end of the game, that lead extended to a whopping 61 points, and it’s safe to say that the Royals had themselves a cushy lead. Final score: 97–36 for the Royals.
The home team had more than their fair share of contributors, but none was more impressive than Simran Bir, who returned to her prime scoring form that she held last year. Bir had a nearly perfect shooting record, nailing 7/7 of her regular shots, 2/2 of her three-pointers, and 5/6 of her free throws, for a grand total of 21 points. Bir was also a distributor of the ball, dishing out 6 assists in her 21 minutes on the court.
After the game, Steve Beauchamp took a moment to comment on his team’s dominant performance. “It’s nice to win, and certainly the score is a little one-sided, but the thing you’re looking for as a coach is whether the team is improving on the things that they’ve been working on in practice. Overall, I was pretty happy with how the newer players played. Once they got over their nervousness they really started to come on. We’ve got some pretty experienced players on the team, and they’ve got big expectations. We’re putting the time in and they’re putting the work in, and I think you’re starting to see it on the court.”
