In a battle featuring a pair of teams ranked in this week's U SPORTS Top Ten, the University of Regina's women's basketball squad collected its ninth straight victory with an 83-67 road win over Winnipeg on Friday night at the Dr. David F. Anderson Gymnasium.

The key stretch for the No. 2-ranked Cougars was a 14-4 run during a span of over four minutes in the fourth quarter, turning what had been a tie ball game into a 70-60 lead midway through the period. Winnipeg made it a two-possession game less than a minute later, but only scored two more points the rest of the way as the Cougars scored the final eight points of the game to pull away late.

Playing in her home town in a conference game for the first time in a U of R uniform, Kyanna Giles (pictured) continued her sensational rookie season with 22 points and nine rebounds in the win. Giles was also perfect from three-point range, hitting all five of her attempts from downtown as the Cougars shot a blistering 63% as a team from the perimeter.

Katie Polischuk was 3-for-4 from three-point range and added 18 points, while Sara Hubenig hit two of her three attempts from three and finished with 10 points.

Both teams move to 15-2 and are mired in a three-way tie for first place in the Canada West standings along with Alberta, which took out Saskatchewan on Friday night in Saskatoon.

Antoinette Miller matched Giles with 22 points and nine rebounds for No. 7-ranked Winnipeg.

The two teams opened the game with an impressive offensive display in the first quarter, combining for 52 points as the Cougars led 30-22 after the opening 10 minutes. Polischuk had 12 of her 18 points in the first quarter alone. The torrid pace slowed down in the second quarter as the Cougars took a 46-39 lead into halftime, but Winnipeg reeled off nine straight points to tie it up. But the Wesmen were never able to pull ahead of the Cougars and after Miller's three-pointer early in the fourth quarter brought the scores level at 56-56, Regina went on its big fourth-quarter run to pull away for good.

The two 15-2 powerhouses will meet again on Saturday night in Winnipeg. Game time is set for 5 p.m.