BURNABY, B.C. — Simon Fraser Red Leafs' head coach Bruce Langford wasn't mincing his words in the post-game following his team's most thorough and complete victory of what has thus far been a frustrating 2023-24 campaign.
 
Langford moved two guards each averaging just over three points per game — junior Arman Dulai (Surrey, B.C.) and sophomore Myrlaine Shelvey (Langley, B.C.) — into the starting line-up Saturday night at the West Gym and watched as the Red Leafs improved to 3-6 in Great Northwest Athletic Conference play with a resounding 83-57 win over the visiting Seattle Pacific Falcons (3-6).
 
"We tinkered with some things in practice this week and we started this pressing line-up we invented to try and bring more energy, and to change the tempo with more speed," said Langford of an important win which comes at the midway mark of the GNAC campaign and vaults the Red Leafs into the conference's sixth-and-final playoff spot with nine more games to go. "I thought it was effective."
 
A loss would have left SFU tied for last place in the 10-team conference at 2-7.
 
With Dulai, Shelvey, freshman guard Rachel Loukes, junior guard Sophia Wisotzki (Langley, B.C.) and senior guard/forward Jessica Wisotzki (Langley, B.C.) opening the game as a quintet with a new mission statement, it didn't take long for the change to pay off.
 
The Red Leafs opened the game as if shot out of a cannon.
 
Shelvey's lay-up 4:13 into the proceedings gave the home team a 13-4 lead, and although Seattle Pacific was able to reverse the tide and pull to within 14-12 at the end of the first quarter, SFU showed the composure and the patience to fight of three early second-quarters ties (at 14, 16 and 18 points) before eventually gaining separation with a game-breaking 28-17 third quarter.
 
That put the Red Leafs on top 68-46 heading into the final 10 minutes of play en route to the victory.
 

Afterwards, Langford wasn't downplaying anything when asked about just how big a decision his line-up change and the stylistic change which came with it, actually was.
 
"It is the most radical thing I have done in my 23 years coaching here," he said. "It's a style that I always wanted to play but always felt that we didn't have all of the bodies that could do it," he said.
 
This week, Langford, with a push from assistant coach Marie-Line Petit, finally decided to give it a try.
 
"I'm conservative about change, conservative about rocking the boat," he said before pointing at his inquisitor and saying "You've been (broadcasting SFU games) for 20 years… Do I like to change a starting line-up? Am I not stubborn with change?"
 
The first move to a more pressing defensive style came in Thursday's 74-60 loss to Montana State Billings, in which Sophia Wisotzki scored a career-high 24 points.
 
On Saturday, she went above and beyond, setting another new career-best with a game-high 29 points, while sister Jessica Wisotzki was her usual self, pouring home a further 23 points, making their 52-point total one shy of their all-time SFU sister-plus-sister best of 53.
 
"I think I got my shot back," said Sophia Wisotzki after going an unconscious 11-of-15 from the floor, including 4-of-4 from deep, "I wasn't shooting as many threes early, but now they are starting to fall."
 
That range, coupled with her speed-racer ways off the bounce, driving to the rim and finishing off glass, has given her a newfound confidence on the court.
 
"I was really working on having a soft touch in the paint because I would go full speed and then it was hard to slow down," she added. "But I'm getting better at finishing those. I am getting more confident with my game. All of that time in the gym is paying off."
 
Jessica Wisotzki went 4-of-6 from deep, giving the sisters a combined 8-for-10 success rate from the perimeter.
 

Yet perhaps the most important thing the Red Leafs did came after they carried a 68-46 lead into the final quarter because it was hard to remember a better Simon Fraser defensive finish than the one the Red Leafs showed over a game-closing stretch of just over seven minutes.
 
After a Schuyler Berry jump shot pulled the Falcons to within 14 points at 68-54, SFU limited Seattle Pacific to just three points over the game's final 7:13.

Defensively, the Red Leafs were suffocating as they forced the Falcons into 0-of-6 shooting from the field during that span, one which also saw SPU go 3-of-7 from the free-throw line.
 
And it was even grittier than those numbers tell because it included two steals by Makenna Gardner (Langley, B.C.) and one apiece by both Loukes and Kaitlin Tetteh-Wayoe (Edmonton).
 
Offensively, all of that pressure resulted in a 15-3 game-closing run, highlighted by Grace Killins (Coquitlam, B.C.), who scored eight of the team's final 10 points over a 3:33 span en route to finishing with 13 on the game.
 
And aside from the Wisotzkis, how did the rest of the head coach's revamped starting five produce?
 
Shelvey and Dulai led with their defence, yet still showed good composure in playing with the added pressure of starting roles.
 
Dulai was 3-of-6 from the field for eight points with a block and steal in 21 minutes, and Shelvey had four points, two steals and a block in 25 minutes.

And Loukes, the pure freshman from Prince George's College Heights Cougars?
 
"Rachel was 1-for-5 (from the field for two points) but more importantly, she had six rebounds, six assists, four steals and zero turnovers (in 27 minutes)," Langford said, proudly reading off the final box score. "What kind of game is that for a rookie? It's beautiful. It's beautiful."
 
Berry led the Falcons with 21 points, while team scoring-leader Olivia Mayer was held to 10 points, after coming into the contest averaging 17.5.
 
And although the conference season still has a whole lot yet to be written, at the very least, the success of Simon Fraser's new-look pressing group does one thing that can't be ignored.
 
It suddenly gives a struggling team more depth than it might have thought it had by simple virtue of the fact that it can play small or big, with one of NCAA Div. II's very best rim protectors and one of the team's most accomplished scorers in 6-foot-2 Gemma Cutler (North Vancouver, B.C.), and freshman 6-footers Rilyn Quirke (Gresham, Oregon) and Tetteh-Wayoe.
 
So, at the midway mark of the conference season, SFU's Red Leafs look like a team reinvented, or should that be reborn?
 
TICKETS
Feb. 1 (7 p.m.): https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/681868566237
Feb. 3 (1 p.m.): https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/681872237217
 
For the latest information on SFU Athletics, visit athletics.sfu.ca. You can also find us on social media at @SFU_Athletics.

#RepTheLeaf