Herd sends Cougars packing in two straight
Women’s b-ball squad will face Wesmen in division final
Regan Sarmatiuk Staff
With a convincing sweep of their best-of-three Canada West divisional semi-final series against the Regina Cougars on Friday, Feb. 17 and Saturday the 18th at the Investor’s Group Athletic Centre, the Bison women’s basketball team advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in five years.
“It was a pretty big weekend for us and we’ve worked really hard in the second half to try to get home-court advantage, and I think that was really one of the differences; being able to play at home was critical for us,” said Bison head coach Pam Danis after the weekend.
The Bisons’ Friday night 55-41 victory featured contributions of 14 points from third-year guard Rachel Hart, 10 points from fifth-year guard Sopear Chhin, and 12 points and 12 rebounds from fourth-year power forward Sarah Holder.
On Saturday, the Bison trend towards spread-out, balanced scoring continued as second-year post Melanie Schlichter scored 17 points, while Hart added 13 and Holder 12.
“We’ve really focused on the fact that we’re a pretty balanced team. I think that’s probably our biggest strength . . . We don’t need to rely on one or two individual players to take the whole load. We’ve really focused on a total team approach, and [the players] seem to have bought into it and it seems to be working,” said Danis.
The total team approach definitely appears to be working, as the Bisons have now won nine of their last 10 games, with a lot of different players seeing court time and playing their unique roles.
The herd’s only loss in their last 10 games came earlier in February in a two-game series split with the U of Winnipeg Wesmen, whom they will face in the Canada West Division Finals at the U of W in a three-game series that starts on Feb. 23.
Danis, a former starting guard for the Wesmen in the early 90’s, when the team repeated as national champions three years in a row, said that for her Bison squad, playing their cross-town rivals will add to the excitement of the playoffs.
“I think we’re pretty excited, and the fact that it’s against Winnipeg just makes it that much more special.”
The Bisons, who were not ranked in the national top 10 as of press time, have a 1-3 record in conference play versus the sixth-ranked Wesmen. However, two of the three losses came in late October, and the herd is certainly peaking at the right time, which should make for an exciting and highly competitive series.
“We just have to really focus on what we need to do and focus on the things that we’ve done up to this point in order to have success, so that’s our goal this week,” said Danis.
