Seeded No. 5 in the U SPORTS Championship, the University of Regina's women's basketball team starts the national tournament against No. 4 seed McGill in a quarterfinal game on Thursday night (6:00 PT, 8:00 Saskatchewan).
Thursday's game will mark the second time in the U of R's last three championship appearances that the Cougars have opened up against McGill in the quarterfinals. The Cougars will be hoping for a similar result to the 2013 tournament in Regina, which saw them defeat McGill by a 68-53 score. Thursday's game will also be the second consecutive season that the Cougars have played in the 4/5 quarterfinal, as they lost a tight game to Ryerson last year as the No. 4 seed.
"It's definitely a tough matchup for us. They had a great preseason and then ran into some injury problems, so their record is very deceiving," Cougars head coach
Dave Taylor said about McGill, which is 20-9 overall this year. "They've got a big post inside that will present problems, and we'll have to do a good job on her defensively."
The Cougars are led by fifth-year guard
Katie Polischuk, named a Canada West first-team all-star and the only U of R player that will dress tonight that also played against McGill back in the 2013 tournament. Regina also features first-year guard
Kyanna Giles, who was named the recipient of the Kathy Shields Award on Wednesday as the U SPORTS Rookie of the Year.
McGill's top player is fourth-year post Alex Kiss-Rusk, who led the Martlets in scoring and rebounding and was fourth in the nation with an average of 2.2 blocks per game. Kiss-Rusk earned RSEQ first-team all-star recognition.
The game will be webcast at
http://usports.live.
COUGAR QUICK NOTES
FAMILIAR TERRITORY: The Cougars are making their second consecutive U SPORTS Championship appearance, their seventh appearance in the last decade, and their 18th in program history.
POLISCHUK LEADS THE WAY: Fifth-year guard
Katie Polischuk, a Canada West first-team all-star this season, is the team's leading scorer with an average of 15.2 points per game this season. She'll finish her career ranked third in Canada West history with 239 career three-pointers hit and seventh in U of R history with 1133 points scored in 95 career Canada West games played.
TAKE TWO AT THE 4/5 GAME: The Cougars also played in the 4/5 quarterfinal at last year's CIS Championship in Fredericton, but lost 73-70 to Ryerson thanks in large part to CIS Player of the Year Keneca Pingue-Giles, who scored a game-high 29 points for the Rams in the win.
FAMILIAR NAME: And speaking of Keneca Pingue-Giles, this year the Cougars have her younger twin sisters on the roster, Kyanna and Kyia. More on Kyanna below, but both players have made significant impacts for the U of R in their first season on campus after arriving from Winnipeg's Sisler High School.
AWARDS POUR IN FOR KYANNA: Kyanna Giles became just the second U of R player in history to earn the Kathy Shields Award, which goes to the top rookie in the nation (Andrea Gottselig, 1996). She's been sensational for the Cougars this year as the team's second leading scorer, top rebounder, and team leader in steals. Â
DEEP BENCH: Coach
Dave Taylor will generally use all 12 available players in any given game. In addition to the probable starters listed below, the Cougars also used
Kyia Giles,
Michaela Kleisinger, and
Ainsley MacIntyre heavily last weekend at the Canada West Final Four.
Alexi Rowden and
Angela Bongomin also saw plenty of minutes on Saturday with
Christina McCusker in foul trouble, while
Britton Belyk and
Caitlin Zacharias also saw the floor.
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