Huskie Athletics

SASKATOON – They trailed throughout a majority of the game but an 18-point swing in the fourth quarter allowed the University of Saskatchewan Huskies women's basketball team to storm back and take game one of their Canada West quarter-final series with the Winnipeg Wesmen by a score of 84-75 on Ron & Jane Graham Centre Court on Feb. 14.
 
"I thought we played really scared and tentative and that showed early on," said Huskies head coach Lisa Thomaidis. "We came out with much more aggression in the second half, were able to get a few stops, get out and run on offence and that's how we need to play."
 
Entering the series looking to pull off their second upset in as many games, the No. 12 seeded Wesmen pushed the No. 1 Huskies to the limit in the contest and led from the halfway point of the opening frame all the way until the Huskies' outstanding fourth quarter.
 
Kelsey Lalor scored a team-high 21 points, nine of which came in the final frame to lead Saskatchewan, while Sabine Dukateadded 20 points on the night.
 
"Credit to Kelsey, she played with a ton of confidence and aggression so it was great to see her have that kind of performance," said Thomaidis.
 
Faith Hezekiah was unstoppable in the opening half, scoring 22 of her game-high 31 points in the opening 20 minutes of action. Farrah Castillo went four-of-seven from beyond-the-arc en route to compiling 20 points for the Wesmen.
 
Winnipeg came out of the gates on fire, carrying over the momentum from their upset of the No. 5 UBC Thunderbirds in a Canada West play-in game last weekend.
 
Hezekiah scored 12 points in the opening frame while the Wesmen's zone defence limited Saskatchewan to just 1-of-13 shooting from the floor, as the visitors jumped out to a 20-10 lead after the opening frame.
 
Winnipeg continued their outstanding shooting in the second frame, knocking down 71.4 per cent of their shots from the floor to extend their lead despite a much better quarter from the Huskies. Hezekiah added another ten points in the second while Castillo and Lena Wenke both scored five to give the Wesmen a 13-point lead at the break.
 
Saskatchewan began to turn the tide in the third. A 17-7 run through the first five minutes of the quarter allowed the home team to cut the lead down to three but a resilient Wesmen squad refused to give up their lead without a fight and bounced back to hold a 64-56 advantage entering the final frame.
 
That fourth and final quarter belonged to Saskatchewan.
 
Just under two minutes into the fourth, back-to-back three-pointers from Lalor and Megan Ahlstrom gave the Huskies their first lead since early in the first quarter. Saskatchewan continued to pull away and led by 12 points with two minutes left to play. A late scoring spurt from Castillo saw the Wesmen get back to within seven but Dukate hit a dagger from deep with 30 seconds left to put the game away.
 
"You always want to get that first win in a best-of-three, that's a huge hurdle to get over," said Thomaidis. "But last year we lost both of our second games so it will be a matter of coming out with a better effort to start the game."
 
Game two of the best-of-three series is scheduled to get underway tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. inside the PAC and can be watched live on canadawest.tv.