Cougars off to nationals
Mar. 8, 2010 - Regina Leader-Post
By Ian Hamilton
The University of Regina Cougars are hoping they can follow up one medal-winning performance with another.
The Cougars won the silver medal at the Canada West women's basketball Final Four on Saturday in Burnaby, B.C., losing 92-62 to the Simon Fraser Clan in the gold-medal game. That placing earned Regina a berth in the CIS championship tournament, which is to begin Friday in Hamilton.
"Our goal going in (to the Final Four) was to go to nationals," Cougars head coach Dave Taylor said Sunday at the Regina International Airport after the team arrived home. "Obviously, we would have liked to win (the conference title), but our next goal was to get to nationals.
"We knew we only needed to win one game out there. We talked about winning Friday night and we did that (beating the Alberta Pandas 86-77 in a semifinal). We didn't meet all of our goals, but we have extended our season."
The victory over the Pandas guaranteed the Cougars a trip to their third straight CIS championship tournament. The top three finishers at the Final Four earned berths at nationals.
"That was a must-win game for us and we came out pretty strong," said forward Carmen Stewart, who had 15 points in that contest. "Winning the first game has been our focus all year because that's how it is at nationals if you want to move on (to the championship side)."
The Clan, Cougars and Saskatchewan Huskies -- who defeated Alberta 94-80 in Saturday's bronze-medal game -- will represent Canada West in the eight-team tournament in Hamilton.
The Clan is to be the top seed, with Saskatchewan third and the Cougars fourth. The Huskies were ranked ahead of Regina because of their two victories over the Cougars in the regular season.
Regina is to open the tournament Friday against the fifth-seeded Laval Rouge et Or.
"We want a medal; that was one of our goals at the start of the year," said Taylor, whose squad lost the 2008 national final to the UBC Thunderbirds and the '09 CIS final to the Clan. "It's going to be tough. Laval's a good team . . . But Canada West prepares us pretty well for (nationals)."
In Friday's game, Alberta led 35-34 at the half before Regina went on a 13-2 run to start the third quarter. Even after post Brittany Read suffered a sprained right ankle, the Cougars scored 30 points in the quarter and 52 in the second half.
Joanna Zalesiak finished with 22 points, six rebounds and six assists for Regina, which got 15 points from Lindsay Ledingham and 12 from Stacey Walker.
On Saturday, the Clan -- which also beat Regina in the 2009 Canada West final -- led 30-18 after the first quarter and 50-32 at the half en route to the gold-medal victory.
"That's never good," Stewart said of a team taking a 30-point loss into its next game. "You're never too happy about that. But we saw some things we have to work on and that'll help us in the coming week."
Zalesiak had 17 points and Ledingham added 12 for the Cougars, who didn't have Read in the lineup. She was on crutches at the airport Sunday, but Taylor predicted Read would be ready for Laval.
Despite a tournament-ending loss and an injury to her team's star player, Zalesiak said "it's not that tough" to accentuate the positives for the Cougars entering nationals.
"The real party starts Friday," she said. "We can forget about (Saturday's) game. We made it to nationals, so we can start all over again."