Postseason Media Guide

The University of Regina's women's basketball team is set to make its third straight appearance at the CIS Championship and 14th overall in school history. The team booked a trip to the tournament by beating the Alberta Pandas last weekend in the Canada West semifinals.

The Cougars enter the national championship as the No. 4 seed after putting together a 16-4 regular season record, defeating Lethbridge in the conference quarterfinals, and capturing a Canada West silver medal.

The U of R kicks off the weekend festivities with a game against the No. 5-seeded Laval Rouge et Or on Friday night in the quarterfinals. This will be the second postseason meeting between the two teams in the past three seasons, with the other coming back in 2008 when the Cougars took out Laval in an overtime thriller to advance to the gold medal game. The winner of the Regina/Laval contest will move on to face the winner of the Simon Fraser/McMaster quarterfinal. The semifinal winner will advance to the national championship game, which will go on Sunday at 3 p.m. EST.

The Cougars are led by third-year post Brittany Read. The Canada West first-team all-star put up career numbers in her first season as the team's full-time starter down low, scoring 14.4 points per game and leading Canada West with an average of 9.8 rebounds per game during the conference season. Read suffered an ankle injury during the team's win over Alberta last weekend, but is expected to be ready in time for Friday's game against Laval.

Second-year guard Joanna Zalesiak, who joins the Cougars after a year of professional basketball in Poland and a season at the University of Texas at El Paso, has been a huge addition to the team this season. Named a Canada West second-team all-star, Zalesiak averaged 14.3 points and 6.3 rebounds per game while finishing second in the conference with 87 assists.

Also expected to start for the Cougars are fifth-year point guard Stacey Walker, fifth-year forward Carmen Stewart, and second-year forward Lindsay Ledingham. Fourth-year head coach Dave Taylor also gets quality minutes off the bench from fourth-year forward Gabrielle Gheyssen and fifth-year forward Rebecca Schmidt.

Friday will mark the fifth time that the Cougars have met Laval in the national tournament. The Cougars won 71-55 back in the 1989 consolation semifinal in addition to their overtime win in 2008, while Laval scored a 72-56 win in the 2002 semifinals and a 57-50 win in the 2005 quarterfinals.

Access7 will broadcast Friday night's quarterfinal game against Laval on tape delay (9:30 p.m. start) in Regina, Estevan, and Weyburn and live everywhere else. Access7 will also broadcast Saturday the late semifinal game on Saturday and the bronze medal game on Sunday live in all areas. TSN2 will be televising the championship final on Sunday.

The quarterfinals, semifinals, and both medal games will be available via webcast at www.ssncanada.ca.