Queens take rematch over Rattlers by 11 points

It was a short turnaround from last night's game, but the Red Deer College Queens Basketball team was ready to compete from the opening tip-off against the Medicine Hat College Rattlers in an afternoon game. The 1st half was once again close but the RDC Queens showed persistence and began to pull away in the 2nd half for a well-deserved 77-66 victory. 

It was back-and-forth in the early going and at the half, the Medicine Hat College Rattlers led the RDC Queens 30-28.

In the 2nd half, the Rattlers led 40-34 but the Queens went on a 13-2 run to pull ahead 47-42. RDC drained several shots from behind the 3-point-arch during this stretch. As the latter half continued, the RDC Queens expanded their lead. RDC went up 8 points (63-55), 10 points (71-61) and capped off the game with a 77-66 victory.

Eva Bonde was named the Queens player-of-the-game. The guard from Skanderborg, Denmark finished with 7 points, 1 steal, 1 assist and 12 rebounds. Dedra Janvier led the Queens with 22 points. For the Rattlers, Kennedy Werre contributed 20 points and 12 rebounds.

Queens Head Coach Ken King was happy with the defensive effort this afternoon.

"Our defence was much more engaged and energy focussed. Eva Bonde was our leading rebounder at both ends," said King. "In a shake-up to our starting lineup, we saw strong performances from Kiana Mintz and Dedra Janvier coming off the bench. If we look at the minutes played and scoring, we see that the playing time was fairly even and our scoring was spread out, which is exciting."

King identified a few areas to work on moving forward.

"Showing up for 1-of-2 games this weekend is unacceptable," said King. "We still need to work on our consistency and focus. They will be points of emphasis going into next week."

As a team, the RDC Queens made 43.1% of their field goal attempts, 63.6% from the free throw line and connected on 33.3% of their shots from behind the 3-point-line. The Queens outrebounded the Rattlers 33-29. With the win, the Queens improve to 10 points in the ACAC Women's Basketball South Division and trail the 4th place Rattlers by only 2 points.

Next weekend, the RDC Queens (5-8) host the unbeaten Lethbridge College Kodiaks (10-0) in a 2 game set. Friday, Jan. 27 the 2 teams face each other in the RDC Main Gym at 6:00 p.m. In an afternoon showdown on Saturday, the Queens face the Kodiaks at 1:00 p.m.