Smith College

Mar. 2, 2013 - Regina Leader-Post
By Ian Hamilton

Brittany Read finally enjoyed a final.

After suffering losses in each of the past five Canada West women's basketball championship games, Read and the University of Regina Cougars won a conference title Saturday with a 53-37 victory over the host University of Calgary Di-nos.

For Read - who played in four of the previous losses and watched the fifth as a medical redshirt - the victory was a relief.

"It gives me a little confidence and a little peace of mind," the 23-year-old Reginan said Sunday from the Calgary airport as she and her teammates waited out a snowstorm that delayed their departure. "I'm not jinxed and I can win a title.

"I've been there so many times and haven't won that you almost start to think there is so much going against you. To finally win it is an amazing feeling."

The Canada West title is the first for the Cougars since 2004, when they beat the UBC Thunderbirds at the U of R.

Regina reached the conference final in each of the past five seasons, but lost twice to UBC (2008 and 2012), twice to the Simon Fraser Clan (2009 and 2010) and once to the Saskatchewan Huskies (2011).

"(Winning this season) reinforces how happy I am that we're making it to the final as a program," said Regina head coach Dave Taylor. "It's not easy getting there.

"In no way did I feel an overwhelming sense of relief (Saturday) like some big weight had been lifted off me. It just reinforced the process of getting there. If you keep getting there, you're going to win it at some point."

The Cougars won Saturday thanks to defence.

Calgary was just 8-for-32 from the field in the first half and 5-for-28 in the second. The Dinos were 2-for-19 from three-point territory in the contest.

Regina wasn't much better to start, going 10-for-40 in the first half (including 1-for-12 from downtown). The Cougars led 10-9 after the first quarter and 23-20 at halftime.

"I don't know if it was nerves or what," said fifth-year forward Lindsay Ledingham. "We went into the dressing room at halftime, took a deep breath and said to ourselves, 'I don't think we're going to continue missing shots like we did.' ''

Thanks to a 10-0 run over the first four minutes of the third quarter, the Cougars built up a 33-20 lead. In fact, their defence held Calgary without a field goal for the first 8: 48 of the 10-minute quarter.

Regina led by as many as 17 (at 41-24) before the Dinos cut it to 12 at the end of three. The defence clamped down again in the fourth, limiting Calgary to just eight points.

To Read, the Cougars' experience was key.

"Half of the Calgary players hadn't been in that situation before," said Read, who had nine points on 3-for-16 shooting but added 14 rebounds (including six on the offensive glass). "When you don't play your best in games like that, you start to freak out a bit.

"We've been in games like that, so we knew what we had to do, we knew to stay composed and we knew it couldn't stay like that. We were going to make shots."

Ledingham and Kehlsie Crone each scored 11 points for the Cougars. Jessica Franz had 15 points and 11 rebounds for Calgary.

As the host team for the CIS championship tournament March 15-17, the Cougars already had a berth in the event sewn up. The victory Saturday will give Regina a higher seeding in the draw, but that wasn't top of mind for Taylor.

"We set two goals over the year: Win Canada West and win the national title," he said. "This was a big deal because it's the first of the two.

"I call this a banner game (with a pennant signifying a championship up for grabs). You can only play in two all year (the conference and CIS finals). The secondary deal was our seeding at nationals."

So far, six teams are in the tournament: The Cougars, Dinos, Fraser Valley Cascades (who advanced by beating the Alberta Pandas 68-57 in Canada West's third-place game Saturday), Carleton Ravens, McGill Mar-tlets and Windsor Lancers. The Quebec champion and a wild-card team are still to be decided.

The Cougars want to win a CIS title as well, but they still were savouring Saturday's victory.

"Everybody's walking around the airport with their gold medals around their necks," Ledingham said. "To be able to go up and get the banner and the championship trophy was pretty amazing."