Wol scores late to give SAIT the 'W'

CALGARY, ALTA., (Feb. 7, 2020) - Last week, the SAIT Trojans women's basketball team felt like they let one slip away. This time around, they made sure it did not happen again.

Anegor Wol (2nd year, Edmonton, Journalism) hit a running jump shot with just 15 seconds left to give her Trojans a 69-67 victory over the visiting Red Deer College Queens Friday night in their Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) game played inside SAIT's Campus Centre.

"That was a battle," said Trojans head coach Bir Parmar, whose team lost last week 65-60 in overtime to Lethbridge College. "Red Deer is a hard working team, and we challenged our girls to be tougher for 40 minutes."

SAIT moves to 4-11 on the season. Red Deer falls to 7-9.

"I think having that loss so late in the game last week helped us because when I hit that shot to put us up one with 30 seconds left, we rushed back and we're like we are not letting this one slip away," said Trojans veteran Lauren Bailey (4th year, Calgary, Bachelor of Business Administration), who played three seasons with Red Deer College prior to coming to SAIT.

In the first half, the teams did very little to separate themselves as they were tied 15-15 after the first quarter and 30-30 at halftime.

Not much changed after the break, as the teams continued to go back and forth.

Fast forward to late in the fourth quarter when things got interesting.

Down 66-62, the Trojans got a layup from Wol with 54 seconds left in the game. The teams then traded possessions with no baskets before Bailey banked in a three-point shot off an inbounds play to put SAIT up 67-66 with 29 seconds remaining.

"I didn't call 'bank', but let's say that I did," Bailey said with a laugh.

The Queens went down the floor where Bailey fouled Sandra Garcia-Bernal. The Red Deer forward made one of two free throws to tie the game with 24 seconds left.

The Trojans raced down the floor where Bailey handed the ball off to Wol. The second-year forward drove into traffic and hit what turned out to be the game-winning shot with just 15 seconds left.

"When she hit that shot, we were ecstatic," Bailey explained. "Everyone went crazy."

The Queens raced the ball down, but could not get a shot off before the clock expired, bringing the SAIT bench off their chairs and on to the floor to celebrate.

Despite being named Player of the Game, Bailey grabbed Wol on the way up to collect the honour as a duo.

"That's my home girl," Bailey said of Wol. "We're best friends, so for me to hit the shot to put us up, and then for her to hit the game-winning shot I felt it was only right that both of us were recognized in that moment."

Wol finished the game with 20 points, while Bailey finished with 19.

Harneet Sidhu led the Queens with 15 points.

The Trojans and Queens will finish off their weekend set Saturday night in Red Deer at 6pm.