Box Score

For the first time in seven years, the University of Regina's women's basketball team failed to advance to the Canada West championship game after a 64-52 loss to Saskatchewan on Friday night in the conference semifinals in Edmonton.

The Cougars had played in every conference championship game since 2008 coming into this weekend's Canada West Final Four, but will now have to pin their hopes of advancing to next weekend's CIS Championship on the one available wildcard berth.

Saskatchewan finished the second quarter on an 11-2 run to take a five-point advantage into the break and the Huskies led for the entirety of the second half. Saskatchewan scored the final five points of the third quarter to push the lead to 51-40, and the U of R's offence fell silent in the fourth as the Huskies pulled away down the stretch.

Saskatchewan's Dalyce Emmerson scored 17 points and added seven rebounds for the Huskies, while Riley Humbert scored 10.

Regina was led by Janine Guijt, who had a huge first half with 18 points and finished with a game-high 20 on 6-of-9 shooting from the field. Charlotte Kot had nine points and six rebounds, while Katie Polischuk scored seven and pulled down a game-high eight rebounds in the loss.

The teams had similar shooting stats with Saskatchewan finishing 35% from the field and the Cougars shooting at a 34% clip, but the U of R turned the ball over 17 times compared to just six for the Huskies.

The Cougars will play for a Canada West bronze medal on Saturday night (5:00 MST) against the loser of the Alberta/Fraser Valley semifinal.

Saskatchewan earns an automatic berth to the 2014 CIS Championship and will play the winner of the second semifinal for the Canada West title on Saturday.

NOTES: Friday's loss was the first time the Cougars had ever dropped their first game of the Canada West Final Four … the U of R's all-time record in Canada West semifinal games falls to 9-1 with the loss.