Ravens Sports Information (Photo by Curtis Martin)
TORONTO - The Carleton Ravens women's basketball team has won seven straight after a commanding 63-53 win over the TMU Bold.
Kali Pocrnic was dazzling for the Ravens leading all scorers with 27 points to go along with two steals, two assists and two rebounds.
While the Oakville guard was the Ravens engine, the forwards got things started with Emma Kiesekamp (Merrickville, Ont.) and Jacqueline Urban (Ancaster, Ont.) scoring the Ravens opening six points. After a Pocrnic three put the Ravens up 9-2 both teams settled in for a consistent and close matchup. By the end of the opening ten minutes, Carleton led TMU 13-10.
Pocrnic and Kiesekamp continued to drive the Ravens through the second frame. If Pocrnic couldn't create a shot for herself in isolation, Kiesekamp seemed to be the answer inside. However, the Ravens could not stitch together a lengthy run as the Bold were strong on defence causing turnovers and forcing missed shots by Ravens' guards in the paint. TMU would pull ahead, with clutch points from Fedick Haley, bringing a low-scoring first half to a close at 22 a piece.
The Ravens finally gained a substantial run in the third, powered by nine points from Urban, who was a perfect 4-for-4 from the field. Carleton was able to take advantage of their time at the foul line going 6-for-6 as they outscored TMU by 9 to create some separation.
In the fourth, the Ravens looked to finish cleaner than the night before and never truly let TMU back into the game. Despite strong play from Haley, the Bold never got closer than five points before the Ravens took advantage of extended time at the line to close out the Toronto sweep.
Carleton returns home to host the top-ranked Queen's Gaels on Friday before heading to Oshawa on Saturday to face Ontario Tech.
On Kali Pocrnic...
"They were trying to take her away and take away her catch on the inbound so we were trying to play through some different people... She's such a selfless player, that even when she would get the ball she was looking for other people, so we had quite a bit of ball movement."
On facing TMU after the 2022 playoffs...
"Not only is there that, there's also a lot of familiarity between not just TMU but UofT, we have some GTA kids playing for us, so they have old teammates and old rivals that they played against playing club so there's a lot of motivation built in there and then you add the fact that they ended our season last year ... Going into it, just a really exciting opportunity and a really well-played game on both sides today."
On facing Queen's on Friday...
"They're obviously playing really well right now, you talk about looking back on the past, and we dropped a tough one at their place in November and I know that that's on our minds. ... We've got to slow them down, they're obviously putting up big numbers and they have big depth, so we're going to have to be playing at a pretty high level to be able to slow them down and build on what we've been able to do over the last few weeks."