Herd falls to Wesmen in divisional final
Solid effort comes up just a bit short
Steven Bohrn Staff
On Friday, Feb. 24 at the Duckworth Centre, The Bison women’s basketball team saw their season come to an end with a heartbreaking defeat in game two of their Canada West divisional final series at the hands of their cross-town rivals, the U of W Wesmen. A 68-64 victory gave the Wesmen, who posted an extremely close 71-70 victory in game one, a 2-0 sweep of the best-of-three series.
After the game, a dejected Bison head coach, Pam Danis, said that her team played with heart and never gave up. The Bisons managed to stick to their game plan for the vast majority of the game and controlled the flow of the game, even though they came up a bit short in the 68-64 loss.
“There were a lot of young girls who had to step up . . . and they did. The girls really kept with the game plan and played really well as a unit,” said Danis.
The Bisons’ game plan was clearly to shut down Wesmen star Uzo Asagwara, who lit up the Bison defence in game one of the series on Thursday for 38 points.
The Bison team strategy in the rematch worked well for the majority of the game, as they held Asagwara to only 17 points and forced other members of the Wesmen squad to step up and put the ball in the basket.
But as the game came to a close, in Jordan-esque fashion, Asagwara demanded the ball and made the plays accordingly, with a particularly clutch three-point play off of a Bison turnover with under a minute to play.
The Bisons played an excellent team game and were led on the scoresheet by Sarah Holder with a game-high 23 points, while Melanie Schlicter and Rachel Hart each added 9 points.
The Wesmen were lead by Stefanie Timmersman with 22 and Asagwara with 17, most of which came in the late stages of the second half.
Danis was proud of the fight her team put up and said it exemplified the season for them.
“They came together well at the end of the season, and really achieved a lot together, but in this series they came up just a little bit short.”
The Bisons’ sole graduating player, Sopear Chhin, ended a fine Bison career, and she leaves a team that will likely have very few open spots on the roster for next year.
The 2-0 series sweep means that the Wesmen will move on to the Canada West Final Four tournament on March 3-4, where they will compete against for a chance to go on to the national championship tournament.
