Women's b-ball sweep up at Clan Classic
Scott Wright, The Peak

"Ouch!"

That pretty much describes the reaction of women's university basketball teams from across Canada to the dominating performance of SFU this past weekend at the inaugural Nike Clan Classic.

The tournament appeared to offer some quality opponents for the Clan, but SFU dismantled the opposition by an average of 43 points and demonstrated why Bruce Langford's team will be a favourite for the national championship in March 2002.

The record books will show Simon Fraser defeated McMaster 84-42, York 84-41, and Saskatchewan 92-45. But the domination went far beyond the final score. SFU out-hustled, out-shot, out-rebounded, and out-worked their opponents throughout the weekend. Ouch, indeed.

In their opening game against McMaster, the Clan provided the crowd at Chancellor gymnasium with 40 minutes of mastery. Leading 47-19 at the half, SFU continued its spirited play in the second half. Heading the Clan attack was Teresa Kleindienst who had 17 points on 7-11 shooting. Also chipping in with double figure scoring were Jessica Kaczowka and Jenn Van de Walle with 18 and 14 points respectively.

It's not easy playing a team that you, barring any miracles, will beat. SFU proved this in the first 10 minutes of their second game against York. After 10 minutes the score was tied at 10. The Clan pulled away after that to take a 40-19 lead into halftime. Kleindienst was the catalyst with 29 points, seven rebounds, and two assists while Kirsten Wood provided some defensive intensity and chipped in with eight points, and four rebounds.

Despite the lopsided win, the game provided some important lessons early in the season for the Clan.

"It wasn't like we came in thinking that they weren't good," said 5th year forward Van de Walle, "but we didn't really feel like we were all together."

Well, the lesson was learned. In their third and final game of the weekend against Saskatchewan, SFU had little trouble in dispatching the overmatched Huskies. SFU jumped out to a 23-1 lead thanks to a more motion-oriented offensive attack. Even with the outcome decided early on, the Clan didn't let up and continued their impressive performance throughout the second half. A balanced offensive performance included 19 points, nine rebounds, and eight assists from Kleindienst, as well as 16 from Devon Campbell and 15 points from Dani Langford all on three-point shots.

Sounding just like a coach, Langford was cautiously pleased with the weekend's games.

"I thought we were up and down on the weekend," he said. "I thought the last game we shot the ball very, very well and I thought we had periods where we played pretty good defense, but [there was] no game where we had consistent defense all the way through."

The Clan took their undefeated record into their first league games of the season this past weekend against UVIC who went 2-1 at the Clan classic. Results were not available at press time.

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