Fredericton, NB- The St. Thomas University Tommies fell at the hands of the Cegep Sainte Foy Dynamiques 65-60 in overtime, in their first game of the 10th annual Ken Gould Invitational Friday night.
Florence Fortin and Amandine Amorich paced les Dynamiques with 12 and 11 points respectively, while Celine Sterckel (Moncton, NB) had 15 and Kylee Roi (Saint John, NB) had 11 for the Tommies.
The Tommies struggled out of the gate in "The Pit" as it took them just over five minutes to get on the score sheet, with les Dynamiques opening up a 6-0 lead before the Tommies would close out the quarter on an 8-3 run to close out the quarter, trailing by one.
"We are always a team that starts slow to be honest," said Tommies' head coach, Fred Connors. "We try and wear you down by playing a certain style, and early on I thought our defence held us in the game."
Out of the gate in the second quarter the team's energy was much better, looking like a brand-new team, scoring 19 points to take a 27-21 lead into halftime. That halftime lead would evaporate quickly as les Dynamiques opened the quarter on an 11-2 run, cutting the Tommies' lead to five heading into the final quarter.
Going into the final two minutes of the game and les Dynamiques hanging onto a 54-51 lead, Vanessa Soffee (Fredericton, NB) stole the ball and on the ensuing possession the Tommies would find Sam Stordy (Moncton, NB) who knocked down a three to tie the game. With less than 10 seconds left and les Dynamiques with the ball, Stordy would step into the lane to take a charge, giving her team the ball with 4.7 seconds left and a chance to win the game. The ball would be inbounded to Sterckel who kicked it out to Soffee who got a clean look for the game winning shot, but it rimmed out, sending the game to overtime.
In overtime les Dynamiques would claw back to take a 63-60 lead and in the waning moments Sterckel would get a clean look for the tie, but it wasn't meant to be on this night, as a pair of free throws would seal the win for les Dynamiques.
"I thought it went really well," added Connors about his team's performance. "That's a really good team that is going to be Nationally ranked when the rankings come out. I felt we were out-lengthed at every position, but we had a clean look to win it [in regulation] and a clean look to tie [in overtime]. I thought we did enough to win the game, we just didn't make enough shots to win the game."
The Tommies will pick things back up Saturday at 4:00pm against the Mount Saint Vincent Mystics.