Saint Mary’s ousted from women’s Final 8
A dominant performance by all-canadian Julia Chadwick spelled the end for the Saint Mary’s Huskies at the U Sports Final 8 women’s basketball championship.
Chadwick scored 25 points and collected a career-tying 27 rebounds to lead the No. 6 Queen’s Gaels to a 69-54 win over the third-ranked Huskies in quarter-final action Thursday night at the national tournament in Edmonton.
The Gaels advance to Saturday’s semifinals while the Huskies have been relegated to the consolation round. They played the University of Fraser Valley Cascades later Friday night.
Chadwick’s 27 boards were the second-most in Final 8 history. Brittany Read of the Regina Cougars set the record of 29 in 2013.
“Just an incredible performance,” Gaels head coach Claire Meadows said in a news release. “She has done that all season for us. She has been an absolute monster for us on the boards, and for her to do that in the first game of nationals is pretty impressive.”
Lucina Beaumont led the Huskies with 15 points, including hitting a threepointer which put SMU ahead 41-40 midway through the third quarter. But Queen's closed out with a 14-2 run to take a 54-43 lead into the fourth.
The Gaels will face the No. 2 Carleton Ravens on Saturday night in an Ontario conference final rematch. Carleton beat seventh-seeded UFV 75-58 on Thursday.
In other quarter-final action, the top-seeded Saskatchewan Huskies routed the No. 8 Calgary Dinos 85-54 and the fourth-ranked Laval Rouge et Or defeated the No. 5 and host Alberta Pandas 65-57.
Saskatchewan plays Laval in the other semifinal Saturday while Calgary and Alberta were relegated to the consolation round.
CHRISTIE NAMED FIRSTTEAM ALL-CANADIAN
Atlantic university conference MVP Malcolm Christie of the Dalhousie Tigers was named to the U Sports first all-canadian team during a men’s basketball awards gala Thursday night in Quebec City.
Dondre Reddick of the St. Francis Xavier X-men was selected to the second team while teammate Koat Thomas earned all-rookie honours.
Diego Maffia of the Victoria Vikes was presented the Mike Moser Memorial Trophy as U Sports most valuable player. Other award winners included Carleton's Xavier Spencer (rookie of the year), Alexander Dewar of Saskatchewan (student-athlete community service), Luka Syllas of Queen’s (defensive player of the year) and Victoria's Craig Beaucamp (coach of the year.)
The men’s Final 8 championship opened Friday at Laval.
Christie led the fourthranked Tigers into the late quarter-final game against the Ontario conference finalist and No. 5 Brock Badgers.
Sixth-seeded Ottawa Gee-gees defeated the thirdranked UQAM Citadins 78-71 in the opening quarterfinal.
The other matchups included No. 1 Victoria – seeking its ninth W.P. Mcgee Trophy in the program’s history – against eighth-ranked Laval and the No. 7 Winnipeg Wesmen versus secondranked Queen’s.
Consolation games are Saturday afternoon followed by the semifinals later that evening. On Sunday, the fifthplace game is slated for 1 p.m. (AT), the bronze-medal game will be played at 3 p.m. and the championship game is set for 7 p.m.