COUGARS TAKE 1-0 LEAD OVER TRINITY WESTERN

REGINA – The University of Regina’s women’s basketball team opened its best-of-three Canada West quarterfinal series against Trinity Western with an 82-59 win over the Spartans on Thursday night at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health & Sport.

Seeded No. 2 in the Canada West postseason, the Cougars got off to a slow start as Trinity Western led 19-18 after the opening 10 minutes. But it was all Regina from there, as the home side outscored TWU by a 25-6 margin in the second quarter and led by at least 16 points the rest of the way.

“I’m happy to get the first game,” Cougars head coach Dave Taylor said. “Offensively, we shot the ball well. But defensively, we were inconsistent and we’ll have to clean that up tomorrow.”

Katie Polischuk led all players with 23 points for Regina in the win, a good portion of which came from the stripe as she made a career-high nine free throws. Kyanna Giles scored 10 points in the first quarter alone and ended up with 15 to go along with eight rebounds, while Sara Hubenig added 10 points.

Christina McCusker also had a nice game for Regina, setting a career high with seven blocks – one off Brittany Read’s school record of eight – while adding eight points and five rebounds.

Kayla Gordon and Natalie Carkner combined for well over half of TWU’s offence. Gordon finished with 21 points and tied Giles for the game high with eight rebounds, while Carkner was 5-for-9 from three-point range and scored 15 points.

Game 2 of the series is slated for Friday night (7:00) at the CKHS.

(Courtesy Braden Konshuh/Cougar Athletics)