Injuries still plagued the Red Deer College Queens Basketball team as Lisa Ivanic and Karlan Majcher, both out with ankle injuries, watched from the bench as their team lost 55-45 to the Mount Royal Cougars Friday night.

Being down their leading scorer, the Queens looked to other players- like Katlyn Olsen and Megan Ivancic- to step up and take a leadership role on the court.

The Queens only trailed 39-37 at the half and dug deep to keep the score fairly even throughout most of the third and fourth quarter.

However, Mount Royal’s quick transition and speedy offense would eventually smother any advances the Queens made.

“This is a young team and we learned a lesson tonight,” said Coach Dawn Smyth. “We still need to do our homework.”

Not executing on offense hurt the Queen’s chances at taking the lead in the second half. The girls were only able to score six points in the fourth quarter. Any hard earned basket they managed to put in, the Cougars were quick to answer back.

“They just stepped away from us,” said Smyth.

Player of the game for the Cougars was Celeste Clark, who was also the Cougars’ top scorer with 19 points. Lauren Loyek received the Player of the Game for RDC while RDC’s top scorers were Loyek and Olsen, both with 13 points.

On Saturday night the Queens traveled to Calgary to play the Cougars again where they lost 72-53.

The Queens now sit in fifth in the south side of the ACAC.

Sometimes a basketball player can do everything right and the shots just don’t seem to want to drop.

This was the story for Kendell Boese and the rest of the RDC Kings basketball team as they suffered a 23 point loss to the Cougars following the girl’s game on Friday night.

Playing against his old team, Boese was a dominant figure in the Kings line-up. His athleticism put constant pressure on the ball and forced many turnovers for his Kings.

Despite Boese’s and the rest of the squad’s defensive efforts, their shots on offence just couldn’t seem to drop which was the turning point in the game.

“It was disappointing,” said coach Stefan Labrecque. “It was not a snapshot of who I thought we were.”

The Kings were only down by five points at the half but the Cougars sneaked up in the fourth and pulled away.

“We didn’t execute what we talked about. We just forgot how to execute,” said Labrecque.

Player of the game for the Cougars was Nick Wiebe while RDC’s Adam Shaw took the title as well as leading scorer of the game with 16 points.

The men traveled to Calgary to play the Cougars again on Saturday night where they lost 89-67.

The team is now sitting in third place in the south division of the league.