Box Score Box Score

The University of Regina's women's basketball team recorded a 71-51 victory over the Lethbridge Pronghorns on Friday night at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health & Sport, giving the Cougars a two-game sweep in the best-of-three Canada West quarterfinal series.

For the second straight night, the Pronghorns came out and took it to the No. 4-ranked Cougars in the early going. Lethbridge opened up a 12-point lead after the first quarter, but the Cougars clamped down on defence and were impressive the rest of the way.

Regina outscored Lethbridge by a 25-9 margin in the second, taking the lead late in the quarter and increasing their lead to four after a Rebecca Schmidt three-pointer at the halftime buzzer.

The Cougars held the Pronghorns to just seven points in the third quarter and scored 20 in the fourth to coast to a 20-point win.

“As seems to be our habit, we tried to make it as tough as possible on ourselves,” Cougars head coach Dave Taylor said. “After that, we decided we would execute our game plan in the final three quarters as opposed to doing so on Saturday in Game 3.”

Brittany Read led Regina in scoring for the second time in as many nights, registering 22 points despite playing in only 21 minutes due to early foul trouble. Schmidt came off the bench to score 13 for the Cougars, while Lindsay Ledingham scored 11 and added nine rebounds.

Kenzie Sheen led Lethbridge with 11 points, while Becky Heninger had ten points and added a team-high seven rebounds. The Pronghorns shot 31.7% from the field and were able to connect on just four of their 17 three-pointers.

The Cougars will now advance to their third Canada West Final Four in as many seasons, which will be hosted by Simon Fraser next weekend.