Sports

The UBC Okanagan Heat basketball teams returned to CIS action Friday night at home to the Manitoba Bisons.

Photo: Contributed

Kelowna's Roslyn Huber's 24 points led the Heat past the Bisons 74-61 Friday at the UBCO campus.

The Women produced their second win of the season 74-61.

The Heat came on strong after a six-week break, continuing to build on their first win of the season on November 26 against the University of Brandon Bobcats and improving to 2-5.

Head Coach Heather Semeniuk used shorter shifts and strategy to her team’s advantage tonight, taking the Heat to 2-5 in conference play.

“I think tonight was an indication of how much they love the game. Getting back and playing the first game, they’re excited,” says Semeniuk. “It’s amazing to reach this point where we can say, ‘this is the league we’re playing in and who’s going to tell us that we can’t.’”

Roslyn Huber (4th year, Kelowna) with 24 points and Madison Kaneda (4th year, Vernon), with 16 led the way offensively.

Huber left game with an injury in the fourth quarter leaving her status for Saturday’s game is in doubt. The Heat play host to the University of Winnipeg Wesmen starting at 6 p.m. at UBC’s Okanagan campus.

The story was just the opposite for the men however, as they were thumped 80-65 by the visitng Bisons.

The Heat were unable to disrupt the high-scoring, up-tempo Bison team and now sit at 1-6 in conference play. The Bisons have won three in a row to improve to 5-4.

“I think that we left a lot of points off the scoreboard today that we should have finished,” says Heat assistant coach Matt Heyworth. “They were consistent in their scoring and we had droughts of 4 or 5 minutes where we didn’t score.”

The Heat host the University of Winnipeg Wesmen Saturday at 8 p.m. at UBC’s Okanagan campus.

Both the men's and women's games can be seen at canadawest.tv.