Perpall aiming for first banner as Pilots coach this weekend

For the first time in a while, the Providence Pilots will get to play for a women’s basketball banner on their home court, as the team is set to host Canadian Mennonite University Feb. 15 for the Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference championship.

The Pilots are 14-3 across all competitions this season, including a perfect record over their Manitoban opponents.

Head coach Kendall Perpall is hoping to win his first championship game, after taking over from now-athletic director Joel Coursey.

The MCAC changed formats last season, awarding hosting rights during the final to the top team in the standings instead of it rotating between schools. Earning those hosting rights is a point of pride for the team.

“It feels amazing,” Perpall said.

“It just shows the good work they’ve been doing all season long so that we can have that home-court advantage for the championships. I’m excited to be (at the Niverville Resource and Rec Centre) one more time.”

After the MCAC finals, the team will play in the Northern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and National Christian Colleges Athletic Association regional qualifiers in the States.

If fans come out to Niverville to watch the final who haven’t seen the Pilots women’s team before, they’ll be in for a shock, as the team deploys an aggressive, pressing style, with full-team hockey-style substitutions every couple minutes.

The goal of what the team calls “system” basketball is to play aggressive and fast throughout the entire game, wearing out their opponents over the course of the 40-minute game.

“These players just continue to make me look good,” Perpall said.

With Perpall at the helm, the Pilots have turned the normally offensively oriented system, into a great defensive one. That was shown as the Pilots beat Les Rouges by 20 points Feb. 6, despite scoring just 66 points.

“Whether we have a good offensive night or not, that still puts us in a really good position to come out with a win,” Perpall said.

“Some games, in the first quarter teams will battle back and forth with us, and I always remind (the players), ‘it’s a marathon, we keep going, we keep pushing until the buzzer goes.’ That’s when teams die down and start making more mistakes.

The final could be competitive, as CMU gave Providence a scare earlier this season, with the Pilots squeaking by 55-54.

MEN’S B-BALL

The school’s men’s basketball team had a chance to sneak into the MCAC playoffs, but needed to sweep the back-to-back against St Boniface to even have a chance.

They collapsed instead, falling behind by 15 points in the second quarter in their first game. A late furious comeback came up one basket short, with Providence reducing the deficit to 55-54 in the final three minutes. Neither team would make a basket until the final moments of the game, as St Boniface pulled away to clinch a spot in the final against CMU.

It was an appropriate result for the Pilots, who have struggled to put together a complete game all season.

“It’s a 40-minute game, it’s not a 20-minute game,” a clearly frustrated head coach Pierre Dubreuil said after the game.

“You can’t take away the credit of another team for playing 40-minutes. Yes, we played a stronger 20-minutes in the second half than them, but if you take the 40 minutes overall, they just played better than us.”

Dubreuil said the answers have to come from the players on the court and not from him on the sidelines.

“They have to show they care as much as I do,” he said.

“I’m going to keep coaching them and I’m going to keep telling them the things I think they have to do, but I’m not on the court. Players have to make plays, players have to make shots, they have to make free throws.”

The team is attempting to salvage berths in other tournaments aside from the MCAC finals.

“We’re fighting our own demons, we’re doing that do ourselves,” Dubriel said.

“No discredit to any teams we played, they played a solid 40-minutes of basketball, but the way we turn the ball over and we don’t make shots, we’re doing that to ourselves. We don’t do that in practice.”

VOLLEYBALL

The MCAC women’s volleyball final will be played at Assiniboine College, but everything else is up in the air. All three other teams in the league are at 7-9 on the season, including Providence, which are ahead via tie-breaker according to the standings page on the league’s website.

Their two remaining games are against CMU and St Boniface, the teams they are tied with. No matter what, Providence will play at the upcoming Canadian Colleges Athletic Association national championships as the tournament hosts.

The Pilots have a chance to nab MCAC hosting rights on the men’s side, as they lead CMU by a game in those standings.

The men’s and women’s teams host St Boniface Feb. 13 and CMU Feb. 14. The MCAC semi-finals will be Feb. 21.

The final weekend of the futsal regular season is this weekend as well, with Providence sitting second in the women’s standings and fourth in the men’s standings.