CIS women's basketball Friday roundup: Sea-Hawks advance to meet Capers in AUS semi-final

Saint Mary's got off to a strong start, finishing the first quarter with a seven point lead. In the second frame of play, St. FX picked up their defensive intensity and got some key defensive stops to end the half.

The halftime score was 42-41 for St. FX.

AUS Defensive Player of the Year, Ashley Stephen had a huge game for the X-Women notching a double-double with 17 points and 13 rebounds on 7-15 shooting. Donisha Young was solid of the bench, chipping in 17 points on 8-11 shooting in just 15 minutes of action.

The CIS leading scorer in the regular season, Justine Colley, had 21 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists in the loss. Teammate Susanne Cavin contributed a double-double with 21 points and 11 rebounds.

With the win, the third seed St. FX X-Women are set to play the second seed UNB Varsity Reds tomorrow night at 8pm at the Field House.

Source: Memorial Sports Info

For Acadia all five starters reached double-figures, led by Abbey Duinker who had 19 points and 7 assists. Ariel Smith had 16 points and 4 three-points.

The Sea~Hawks will now face Cape Breton at 6pm on Saturday night at the Field House.

The winning teams on Saturday will meet at 1pm on Sunday in the championship game. The third place game will take place at 11am on Sunday.

Source: Memorial Sports Info

Led by guard Katie Miyazaki with a triple-double, the No. 1 ranked Huskies and host of the Canada West Final Four earned the trip after a 88-59 semifinal win over the University of Fraser Valley Cascades Friday night at the PAC in Saskatoon.

Miyazaki's triple double came after 10 points, 11 assists and 15 rebounds. Four other Huskies scored in double digits in the game – point guard Jill Humbert scored a game-high 23 points, Marci Kiselyk added 16 points, Jana Spindler 14 points and Canada West MVP Kim Tulloch 11 points. Tulloch and Kiselyk each also had 10 rebounds. Miyazaki's feat was the first triple double in the Canada West since 2005 when Winnipeg Wesmen Stefanie Timmersman scored 13 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists.

Alyssa Gaukel was the best on the night for the Cascades scoring 17 points, followed by Tessa Klassen with 10 points. Sarah Wierks had a team-high 10 rebounds.

"We had phenomenal performances by our starters and key contributions from bench," said Huskie head coach Lisa Thomaidis. "I thought we stuck to our game plan. We are happy to be playing in a Canada West Final on our home court."

The Huskies jumped out of the gate with an 8-2 lead in the first quarter. From there the entire first half was all Saskatchewan. Up 25-12 at the end of the first quarter, the Huskies extended their lead to 17 a head 49-32 heading into halftime. Saskatchewan seemed to find the basket on almost everything shooting 65% in the first half of the game.

Although UFV made a push in third quarter outscoring the Huskies 17-16, the bid for the comeback wasn't enough. The Cascades push came at the hands of leading scorers Wierks, Klassen and Gaukel, who all had five points in the frame and helped close the gap to 11 at one point. However, Saskatchewan continued to answer the Cascades shots and finished ahead 65-49 heading into the final quarter. Saskatchewan held Fraser Valley to just 10 points in the final frame, scoring 23 of their own, en route to the 88-59 win.

The Huskies finished the game shooting 52.5%, while Fraser Valley shot 36.8%. The Huskies also beat the Cascades on the boards outrebounding them 46-27. The Huskies capitalized scoring second chance points.

Saskatchewan will face provincial rival the Regina Cougars in the Canada West Final Saturday night. Regina defeated the Alberta Pandas 72-68 in the other semifinal Friday night. Tipoff for the championship game is 7 p.m. Fraser Valley will face the Pandas in the bronze at 5 p.m. For tickets, visit huskies.usask.ca

Source: Saskatchewan Sports Info

The Cougars will square off with Saskatchewan on Saturday night for the Canada West championship, while Alberta will meet Fraser Valley in the third-place game.

Regina led for the majority of the first three quarters, but never built up more than a 10-point lead. After chipping away at the deficit and going into the fourth tied with the Cougars, Alberta's Katie Arbuthnot hit a pair of free throws to give the Pandas their first lead since late in the first quarter.

That's when Regina's Lindsay Ledingham had seen enough, and the third-year forward reeled off eight consecutive points of her own to give the Cougars a lead they would never relinquish.

Alberta was always within striking distance of the Cougars, cutting the deficit to just two points on three separate occasions in the fourth. The Pandas had a chance to tie it late in the contest, but a three-pointer attempted by Marisa Haylett with six seconds left rimmed out.

"Other than the second quarter, we really limited our turnovers which enabled us to run an effective offence," said Cougars head coach Dave Taylor, whose team committed just 16 turnovers in the victory. "Our usual suspects in Ledingham and (Joanna) Zalesiak were good, but in the first half Megan Chamberlin stepped up and (Gabrielle) Gheyssen did the same in the second."

Ledingham was 10-for-11 from the free throw line and scored a game-high 21 points for the Cougars. Zalesiak scored 16, while Gheyssen added 15 and Chamberlin had 10.

Haylett led the Pandas with 14 points, while Anneka Bakker scored 13 and Kendra Asleson had 12. Georgia Popovici scored 11 and pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds to register the contest's lone double-double.

A win for the Cougars tomorrow would give them their second Canada West championship in program history and an automatic berth in the CIS Championship in Windsor, Ont. If the Cougars lose, they'll host the four-team CIS West Regional next weekend at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health & Sport.

Alberta now knows it will be travelling east for a regional next weekend. A win over Fraser Valley puts the Pandas into the CIS Central Regional, while a loss to the Cascades sends them to the CIS East Regional.

The third-place game kicks things off on Saturday night with a 5 p.m. tip. Regina and Saskatchewan will decide the conference championship beginning at 7 p.m. Webcast and live statistics will be available for both games.

NOTES: Saskatchewan took an 88-59 win over Fraser Valley in the other semifinal ... the Cougars are now 6-0 against Alberta in the postseason and are a perfect 6-0 in Canada West semifinal games since the current format was introduced prior to the 2002-03 season.

Source: Regina Sports Info