Last Saturday, UTM had their homecoming weekend where the varsity women’s basketball team played their first exhibition game against the Redeemer Royals. The women won the first toss of the game and less than a minute into the game, Bianca Hatchett gets the first basket to put UTM on the score board. The first quarter was a lot of back-and-forth play, but the women held their own and were working well as a unit—despite the score ending in 18-15 for Redeemer at the end of the quarter.
When the second quarter rolled around, the women began playing with high intensity and turned the game around to be in their favour. Second-year player, Jade Addai, made an incredible play roughly halfway through the quarter, which lead UTM to take the lead. Addai took the ball from one end of the court to the other where she had dribbled through the entire Redeemer team to score a basket, putting UTM ahead 23-22. The crowd was pumped up after this play and cheering on their UTM Eagles for the remainder of the quarter. The half ended 37-31 for UTM.
At halftime, there was entertainment for the crowd set up by members of the RAWC. There were two competitions—one was a full court race with the ball for small children , where they all received prizes at the end, and the other was a 3-point shot competition where they invited four contestants from the crowd to compete against one another. The RAWC was also handing out free t-shirts, food, and noise clappers to fans who came out and supported their UTM Eagles.
The UTM women struggled in the third quarter. They weren’t sinking as many baskets as they were in the first and second quarter, and the team was beginning to break down. Redeemer took the lead 55-44. The women stepped it up halfway through the fourth quarter and began raising their intensity once again. UTM was scoring baskets and working well as a team, but were still unable to catch up to Redeemer who took the game 74-65.
The UTM women’s basketball team will be competing at the varsity level this upcoming season. Fortunately, this was only an exhibition game, and the women can use this game as a way of learning and improving upon their weaknesses. The women have a clear chemistry on and off the court, and with a little hard work and dedication, they are looking at a promising season ahead.
