Charlotte Kot's career-high 26 points led the University of Regina's women's basketball team to their ninth consecutive victory as the Cougars pulled out an 80-61 win over the Victoria Vikes on Friday night at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health & Sport.

Kot was on fire all night long, going 10-for-12 from the field and 6-for-7 from the line as she eclipsed her previous career high of 24 set earlier this year in a game at Alberta. Kot also led the Cougars with 13 rebounds to notch her five double-double of the conference schedule.

"I was happy with our second-half defensive performance against a tough Victoria offence," Cougars head coach Dave Taylor said after his team surrendered just 26 points in the final two quarters. "I thought Charlotte was outstanding and we enjoyed great contributions from our bench players tonight."

The two teams played the opening quarter to a dead heat, with a pull-up jumper by the U of R's Sidney Dobner tying the game at 19-19 just before the end of the period.

But the second quarter was all Cougars, as Kehlsie Crone hit a pair of three-pointers as part of an 8-0 run over the first minute and a half. Victoria called timeout and quickly chipped the lead down to two, but the Cougars exploded for 15 consecutive points to go up 42-25 just past the midway mark of the second.

The Cougars led by 11 at halftime and saw Victoria get the lead down to seven at one point in the early going of the third quarter, but that was as close as the Vikes would get. The U of R went on a 12-1 run sparked by Kot to go back up by 18, and the Cougars never led by fewer than 12 points after that to cruise to their 14th victory of the season.

Alyssia Kajati added 12 points in the win for the Cougars, while Britton Belyk hit three triples for a career-high nine points off the bench. Katie Polischuk and Crone also had eight points as the Cougars improve to 14-1.

Nicole Karstein led Victoria (7-10) with 23 points and added a game-high 14 rebounds for a double-double. Karstein also led all players with five steals, while Amira Giannattasio (11 points) and Kristy Gallagher (10) also hit double figures in scoring.  

The two teams will finish off the two-game weekend series on Saturday night at the CKHS (6:00, CanadaWest.tv).