Brian Swane, Special to Canada West
EDMONTON – It's Wild Rose Country versus the Land of the Living Skies in the 2019 Canada West women's basketball semifinals, as the Saskatchewan Huskies host the Lethbridge Pronghorns and the Regina Cougars travel to Calgary to face the Dinos.
The victors of this weekend's best-of-three series will go on to play each other in next week's CW Championship, while securing a berth in the U SPORTS Final 8.
You can watch every CW game all post-season on Canada West TV.
No. 6 Lethbridge (12-8 reg. season, 3-0 playoffs) -AT- No. 1 Saskatchewan (16-4, 2-0 playoffs)
- Physical Activity Complex in Saskatoon
- Game 1 – Thursday, 7 p.m. CST
- Game 2 – Friday, 7 p.m. CST
- Game 3* - Saturday 7 p.m. CST
Just two weeks ago, the Pronghorns had gone 17 years without a post-season victory. Now they've won three straight playoff games, after opening their post-season with a 99-60 defeat of Victoria in the play-in round, and then stunning the Alberta Pandas with a 2-0 quarter-final sweep in Edmonton last weekend. On the other hand, Saskatchewan is looking to reach the Canada West championship for a sixth straight year. The top-seeded Huskies had a bye through the play-in round, then got past Winnipeg 2-0 in the quarters. Saskatchewan downed U of L twice in Saskatoon at the beginning of January, out-scoring Lethbridge by 53 points over the two nights, but the Pronghorns have since gone 10-1. Lethbridge limited Alberta to just 34.1 per cent shooting from the field in their quarter-final series and will need to continue stout defensive play against a Huskies team that was Canada West's top scoring team in the regular season, averaging 81.3 points per game.
No. 3 Regina (17-3, 2-0) -AT- No. 2 Calgary (17-3, 2-0)
- Jack Simpson Gym in Calgary
- Game 1 – Thursday, 6 p.m. MST
- Game 2 – Friday, 6 p.m. MST
- Game 3* - Saturday, 2 p.m. MST
Calgary has been virtually unbeatable the last few months. The Dinos swept UNBC in the quarter-finals and entered the playoffs on a 17-1 surge after dropping their first two games of the regular season. Those two losses? They just happened to come at home to the same opponent who will be visiting them this weekend, the defending Canada West champion Regina Cougars. The Cougars are on a roll themselves, with 10 straight victories, including a 2-0 quarterfinal sweep of Victoria. To further the intrigue, this is a rematch of last year's semifinal, which saw Regina get two narrow victories over the Dinos in the Queen City. The Cougars led Canada West this season in field goal percentage (.451%) and were second in scoring with 79.7 points per game but are matched up with a dominant defensive Dinos team, which averaged just 58.9 points against and held the opposition to 36.0% field goal shooting.