The University of Regina's women's basketball team held off the Trinity Western Spartans for an 80-72 victory on Saturday night in a Canada West quarter-final game in front of 1246 fans at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health & Sport.
The victory sends the Cougars into the Canada West semifinals. They'll host No. 3-seeded Calgary next Friday at the CKHS, with the winner to earn a trip to the conference final and an automatic berth to the 2023 U SPORTS Championship in Sydney, N.S.
Jade Belmore had another standout performance for the Cougars, scoring a game-high 26 points while adding 8 rebounds and 6 steals.
"We had a rocky second quarter, but I thought we did a great job of locking in after halftime," Cougars head coach
Dave Taylor said. "As usual Jade (Belmore) was outstanding for us, but we also had some players step up off the bench for us and I thought Rachel (Vanderhooft) and Brenna (Metz) both gave us really good minutes. And
Maddy Seida and
Eden Wells did a great job running the point for us."
Jolene Vlieg had 20 points to lead the Spartans, who earned their way into Saturday's quarter-final with a Friday victory over Victoria in a play-in game. Jayden Gill added 17 points, while Hailey Van Roekel chipped in with 14.
Julia Vydrova and
Dayna Pearce also scored in double figures for Regina in the win. Both players ended up with 12 points.
After a quick start for TWU to open the game, the Cougars finished the first quarter on a 10-3 run and led 24-18 after the opening period. The Spartans got the offence moving in the second quarter that drew Taylor's ire as four different players hit a total of five three-pointers and Trinity Western outscored Regina 27-20 in the period to put the No. 7-seeded visitors up 45-44 at the half.
But the Cougars landed a counter-punch in the third quarter in the form of a 16-3 run that featured buckets by five different Regina players and gave the home side a 10-point lead. Trinity Western answered that with a 7-0 run of its own to make it a one-possession game, but Belmore scored the next seven points to restore the double-digit lead heading into the fourth.
Trinity Western cut the lead down to six points on two different occasions and had three attempts from three-point land in the late going that would have made it a three-point contest, but couldn't get any of them to fall. A late free throw by Wells made it a three-possession game with 20 seconds to go and all but sealed the win for the Cougars.
The Cougars and the Dinos will tip off next Friday's Canada West semifinal at 7:00 p.m. at the CKHS.
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