Cougars Championship Dream Extinguished By The Huskies

                                        Picture: Arthur Images


The University of Saskatchewan Huskies used some hot perimeter shooting to defeat the No. 2-seeded Regina Cougars 74-71 in a U SPORTS semifinal game on Saturday night in front of 2411 spectators at a jam-packed Centre for Kinesiology, Health & Sport.

Saskatchewan, which was seeded No. 6 coming into the weekend, will now face Carleton for the right to hoist the Bronze Baby as the U SPORTS champions.

The Cougars will move over to the third-place game on Sunday afternoon (2:30). They’ll take on McGill, which lost to Carleton in the early semifinal game on Saturday.

“Full credit to Saskatchewan. I thought they played great and punished us on every mistake we made,” Cougars head coach Dave Taylor said. “We lost the battle of the boards and I was worried that Sabine (Dukate) would heat up tonight, and that’s exactly what happened.”

Five different Huskies hit three-pointers in the win, including Dukate with five – all in the first half. Megan Lindquist hit four triples, while Libby Epoch drilled three. Megan Ahlstrom and Kelsey Lalor both hit their only attempts of the night from beyond the arc, helping Saskatchewan shoot 14-for-28 as a team in the victory.

Saskatchewan turned over the ball 26 times compared to just 10 for Regina as the Cougars had a 25-8 advantage in points scored off turnovers, but the hot shooting by the Huskies allowed them to overcome that disparity.

Fittingly, it was a pair of three-pointers at the end that sunk the Cougars. The game was tied at 68-68 with two minutes to go, but Lindquist and Epoch hit back-to-back triples to go up by six. Regina’s Sara Hubenig answered with a three-pointer of her own with 30 seconds to go, but that was the last bucket of the game. The Cougars got a stop and had a chance to go for the tie, but couldn’t get a good look at three and had to settle for a contested layup that was no good. Lalor came down with the rebound for Saskatchewan, sealing the win for the visitors.

Dukate led all players with 20 points for Saskatchewan, most of which came off those five first-half hree-pointers. Lindquist was 4-for-7 from downtown and finished with 15 points and seven rebounds, while Epoch was 3-for-7 and had 13 points and five assists. Megan Ahlstrom chipped in with eight points and nine boards.

Kyanna Giles was outstanding for Regina, scoring a game-high 27 points. Kyia Giles had 14 points and a team-high six rebounds, while Hubenig hit four three-pointers and finished with 13 points. Hubenig and both Giles sisters all had four steals for the Cougars.

(Braden Konschuh/ U of R Athletics