Unsatisfied in victory

Cougars women’s basketball team not happy despite sweeping Calgary at home

Autumn McDowell
Sports Writer

The University of Regina women’s basketball team wanted to finish off their final Canada West home games of 2010 with a bang. However, it wasn’t exactly the performances that the team had hoped for.

Although the Cougars came away with the win over the University of Calgary Dinos on Friday night at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health and Sport, it was by a score of 66-64. The game came right down to the wire.

“Well, first off, it was by no means our best performance,” said Cougars forward Lindsay Ledingham, who was the game’s leading scorer with 19 points.

The score was a little too close for comfort in the game for Regina, which got off to a bit of a slow start and were left trailing the Dinos by a score of 19-15 after the first quarter. However, Regina was able to battle back through the second and held a slim one-point lead heading into the half.

The Cougars looked to come out strong after the break, but their efforts only resulted in them being locked at 47 with Calgary after three quarters of play.

In a back and forth final quarter, the drama really began within the last minute of play. With 41 seconds left on the clock and the score tied at 62, Ledingham was fouled and was sent to the line to shoot two free throws. After hitting both free throws, the Cougars were holding on tightly to a two-point lead as the clock seemed to take forever to tick down.

Ledingham was sent back to the foul line yet again with just 13 seconds left, going one for two at the line and extending the home team’s lead to three. It was then Calgary’s turn to go to the line and Alex Cole was perfect on both attempts. With just 12.4 seconds left, Regina called its final time out with their lead now at one.

Calgary would go on to foul one more time, sending Cougars guard Carly Graham to the line. Graham was able to push the Cougars lead to two and with 1.7 seconds left on the clock. Ledingham was then able to intercept a pass for the Cougars, which allowed the team to hang on to the victory.

No one on Regina’s bench was pleased with the performance, but as Ledingham admitted, “All we can do is take what we learned tonight and apply it to the game tomorrow.”

The only problem was that the Cougars ending up in an almost identical spot Saturday night.

Regina got off to an even slower start in the game, scoring a measly seven points in the first quarter. Their troubles didn’t stop there. The Cougars needed to crawl back from a 17-point deficit, but a big third quarter was able to narrow the gap. Regina scored 13 unanswered points, nine of which came from point guard Joanna Zalesiak.

Once again, with about a minute left in regulation, the two teams were dead locked at 64, but a few desperate shots and steals caused the Cougars to once again come away with the W. This time, it was by a score of 72-67.

Although the Cougars were able to go 2-0 on the weekend and pick up four points, they were still unhappy about their performance.”

“This is our home court,” said Ledingham “We want to play well here. That was one of our goals going into the season and we didn’t do that this weekend.”

Regina is tied for first in the conference with the University of Alberta Golden Bears at 9-1. The Cougars take on Alberta on the road this weekend in a battle for first place. The games will be their final regular season games of 2010.