The Red Deer College Kings put in a tidy bit of work on Saturday, beating the Briercrest College Clippers 95-72.
The win comes a day after the Kings beat the Clippers 94-67, both games coming on the RDC home court.
On Saturday, the game was decided in the first half — with the Kings running up the score to over 20, despite not shooting the three-ball very well.
“We did enough to win. There were a lot of things I would have liked to see us do better,” Kings Coach Clayton Pottinger said.
The second half was a different affair for the Kings, who struggled shooting the ball and locking down on defence.
“We turned the ball over a lot in the second half and we let our intensity down once we opened up the 20 plus point lead. That is something we have to work on,” Pottinger said.
Following a few defensive lapses, the Kings took a timeout to right the ship. Pottinger said his team didn’t respond the way he would have hoped.
“I thought for the most part there was no response. In fact we ended up losing the second half by six or seven points,” he said.
Pottinger wasn’t worried, however, about his team shooting three for 18, 16.7%, behind the arc.
“We take the shots that come to us. Tonight we didn’t shoot the three that well but other nights we have shot it a lot better,” he said.
Forward Eric Bakker won player of the game after notching 16 points on five out of nine shooting and grabbing nine boards.
“Eric has been a model of consistency for us all season,” Pottinger said. “He is always shooting a good percentage and rebounding the ball.”
Rebounding is clearly a strength for the Kings, especially for newcomer Daniel Powell.
“On the defensive boards, he is a monster. He had 18 rebounds today, 15 of those being defensive rebounds. Yesterday he had 17, so 35 rebounds is a serious weekend’s worth of work,” Pottinger said.
The Kings are now on a four-game win streak heading into a crucial part of their season.
“The teams we have to beat in order to establish a playoff position are coming up here on our schedule,” Pottinger said. “That is going to be Olds, Ambrose, SAIT and Medicine Hat. We have to continue to play together and we need to continue to feature our top guys and what they can do.
“The main thing we need to do is defend a bit better, which is something we haven’t done in the first half of the year.”
Meanwhile, the Red Deer College Queens grabbed two wins from Briercrest as well. The Queens won a tight one on Friday 71-70 and then followed that up with another tight 63-56 contest on Saturday.
Coach Ken King said his team competed hard on Saturday.
“We struggled against the zone and weren’t able to do what we wanted to do with some empty possessions but overall, having to compete for 40 minutes to win a game and come out on top, it gives you a lot of lessons you can learn positives from,” he said.
Both the Kings and Queens head to Olds to play the Grizzlies on Thursday, before returning home to play the same Grizzlies on Jan. 27th.
todd.vaughan@reddeerexpress.com
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