On Saturday, both the Douglas College Royals men's and women's basketball teams picked up wins against the visiting Okanagan College Coyotes.
Third-year Royals guard Jessica Castillo's season-high 18 points and a first career double-double from rookie guard Hailey Van Roekel helped the women snap their 4-game losing streak and beat the Coyotes 65-56.
The first quarter of the women's game saw both the Royals and the Coyotes go on runs of their own, as Douglas led 9-0 in the first three minutes and Okanagan went on a 9-2 run shortly after.
Douglas would eventually come out of the first quarter leading 13-10 and would take that momentum into the second quarter as they outscored Okanagan 16-8 to lead 29-18 at the half.
The turning point of the game would then be at the start of the 2nd half, as although the Coyotes had outscored Douglas 22-18 in the 4th quarter, a Royals 10-2 run to start off the third quarter extended Douglas's lead to 19 and was ultimately too much of a gap for Okanagan to close.
"Coming into today's game we really had to push the tempo. The last time we played Okanagan we found a lot of success at pushing the basketball, which I think we saw at the start of the first quarter." said Royals head coach Steve Beauchamp when asked about what adjustments the Royals made tonight in order to get the victory.
"We really wanted to build on our defensive tenacity and use that in today's game as well. We knew that Okanagan may have felt they should've won the last time we faced them and that they were coming for us. But we felt like we played hard which was most important."
The men also got the best of the Coyotes on Saturday, as a spectacular 34 points scored by Douglas in the third quarter helped the men secure their 11th win of the season by a score of 101-67.
The men's game saw Douglas play outstanding basketball throughout as a 17-6 run in just about the last six minutes of the first quarter and ten of Royals third-year guard Josiah Mastandrea's 14 points in the second quarter helped Douglas lead by 12 points at the half.
Douglas's then opened the gap even further as 34 points scored by the Royals in the third quarter helped Douglas go into the 4th up 29 points.
Douglas then outscored Okanagan 22-17 in the fourth to win the game 101-67.
Individual highlights included royals 5th-year veteran forward Reese Morris finishing with 17 points, Royals second year guard Dylan Kinley picking up 16 points, and Royals second-year forward Bollo Gnahore finishing with a season-high 12 points and 7 rebounds.
"I think our depth wore them out and I think we've been a third quarter team all year. We've been able to sustain a certain level of play after not playing great in the first half and I think we just eventually wear you out." said Royals head coach Joe Envoldson when asked about what adjustments the Royals made in the 3rd quarter.
"Believe it or not I think we played better in the fourth quarter tonight han we have in the last couple of weeks in terms of scoring margin, taking care of the basketball, and responding well to teams upping the pressure in the fourth quarter.
Both the men and women remain in the same spot on the PACWEST conference standings as the women remain in the 4th seed and the men continue to stay atop of the PACWEST conference.
The Royals next home game will be this Friday when they play the Columbia Bible College Bearcat, with the women kicking things off at 6pm and the men playing at 8pm.
