Gee-Gees entered the game ranked first in the country
Last year, it was the #10 Gee-Gees who upset the U SPORTS #1 Ravens in the annual ‘Bytown Battle,’ which serves as a December preview of February’s Colonel By Classic. This year, it was the #1 ranked Gees who would be upset 81-59 by the #4 Ravens in the first of two meetings between the crosstown rivals.
The Ravens would use eight points in the first four minutes of the game from forward Jacqueline Urban to storm out to an early lead, but Gee-Gees point guard Natsuki Szczokin would keep them in the game, picking up nine early points of her own and an assist on an Allie McCarthy three-pointer. The high-scoring first quarter ended with Carleton leading Ottawa 26-22.
Despite the close first quarter though, the Gee-Gees would begin to struggle in the second against the Ravens, who entered the game with a perfect 10-0 record in the OUA. Though five players got run off the Gees’ bench in the half, the unit managed just two points, coming from an Enora Touloute layup. Led by Urban and Tatyanna Burke, the Ravens would extend their lead to 13 points by halftime.
The third quarter told more of the same story that the second did. The Gee-Gees managed just two more bench points — this time from an Ivany Rheault-Langué layup — part of just seven total points in the frame for the teamw.
The Gee-Gees struggled to get inside looks on a rock-solid Ravens defence all night, managing just four points in the paint throughout the entire game. Meanwhile, the Ravens were pounding the Gee-Gees with efficiency and interior scoring, as they racked up 30 of their own points in the paint.
Burke led the home team with a game-high 23 points, while Urban and Kyana-Jade Poulin also finished in double digits. For the Gees, Szczokin led the team with 21 points, while centre Emily Payne and wing Allie McCarthy rounded out the trio of Gees in double figures. Szczokin also picked up five of the team’s seven assists.
“I tried to motivate the team at half time, saying, ‘some people need to feed off [Szczokin’s] energy,’” head coach Rose-Anne Joly said after the game. “She was everywhere, right?”
Nine months ago, the Gee-Gees were eliminated from the playoffs in the Raven’s Nest, a loss Joly remembers too well. “They haven’t changed much,” said Joly. “They only lost one player, so they’re as tough defensively, they know how to play together, they understand their reads, they’re very disciplined.”
The Gee-Gees will take a month off before returning to action with matchups in Northern Ontario against Lakehead (Jan. 10) and Laurentian (Jan. 17). After that, five games separate the Gees from another matchup with the Ravens, by way of the Colonel By Classic.
“There’s so much time to improve,” said Joly, noting the losses to Brock and Carleton serve as good tests, but that “we’re running out of tests and we’re running out of ways to stay motivated, so we have to go back to the drawing board.
On a night where nothing seemed to go right for the Gee-Gees, Joly pointed to one factor that doesn’t appear on the drawing board as the biggest impediment: “Not being able to handle the pressure.”
