OTTAWA – For the fourth time in program history the University of Saskatchewan Huskies women's basketball team will get the chance to play for a national championship after they led from start to finish in a dominant 76-57 semifinal victory over the Laval Rouge et Or Saturday in Ottawa.
Saskatchewan will now get set for a U SPORTS National Championship clash with the Brock Badgers tomorrow, Sunday March 8. That game has a scheduled tip-off time of 3 p.m. Central.
As has been the case all season long, it was a combination of shut-down defence and depth of scoring that led Saskatchewan to victory.
Megan Ahlstrom (16),
Libby Epoch (12),
Kyla Shand (12) and
Summer Masikewich (11) all hit double-digits in points. The fifth-year captain Ahlstrom was named player of the game while Epoch added seven rebounds and seven assists and Shand 11 boards on the night.
"I think our team is quite a bit deeper than we were in 2015-16," said Huskies head coach
Lisa Thomaidis on how this team compares to the 2015-16 team that claimed the lone national title in program history. "We have many more weapons and people that can come in and I think we saw that tonight and that's fun to play with and fun to watch."
Defensively the Huskies limited Laval to shooting just 26 per cent from the floor while also grabbing 52 rebounds to Laval's 38.
Carrie-Ann Auger led the Rouge et Or with 17 points on the night.
While both teams struggled to score in the first quarter, it was the Huskies who came out with the stronger start, jumping out to a 7-0 lead before surrendering a point. Shand racked up five points and Saskatchewan limited Laval to just two made buckets in the opening ten minutes en route to a 14-6 lead.
"It's great to come out firing and feeling good about what we are doing offensively," said Thomaidis. "We really locked them down defensively so that certainly builds momentum for us early on."
After the team's traded scores in the early part of the second frame a stretch of dominance from Epoch widened the gap even further.
The fourth-year guard recorded a floating jumpshot, immediately stole the ball for a wide-open layup before forcing another turnover and finding an open teammate for two more points to make the score 31-12.
Shand nearly had a double-double in the first half with 11 points and eight rebounds to help Saskatchewan take a 45-25 lead into the halftime break.
Playing their best basketball in the third quarter, Laval got the lead down to just 11 points halfway through the third before the Huskies rallied to hold a 53-37 advantage heading into the fourth.
Epoch and
Sabine Dukate put the game to bed just minutes into the fourth when they were good on back-to-back three-pointers to allow Saskatchewan to pull away with the 19-point victory.
For a trio of fifth years in Ahlstrom,
Vera Crooks and Dukate tomorrow's game will mark the conclusion of their maginificent Huskie careers. They have claimed four Canada West titles and have now qualified for the U SPORTS Championship game three times.
In Saskatchewan's three previous trips to the championship game they hold a record of 1-2. The Huskies lost to the Windsor Lancers 63-49 in 2010-11, defeated the Ryerson Rams 85-71 in 2015-16 and lost 69-48 to the Carleton Ravens in 2017-18.
