The other gymnasiums in the Canada West conference were kind to the Dinos women’s basketball team this season.
With a pair of convincing victories last weekend at the University of Saskatchewan, the Dinos improved their road record to 5-1 and their overall record to 5-3.
Led, as always, by Leighann Doan, the Dinos won 76-82 on Friday and 84-63 on Saturday. Doan scored 20 points and nine rebounds on Friday, and added 27 points and 17 rebounds. Also on Friday, Cathy Payne had 17 points, followed by Allison McGinn with 11 and Linnae Bee with 10. Jill Bekar notched 10 points on Saturday.
"That was our goal going in–to sweep them," said point guard Linnae Bee.
The U of S Huskies play an unconventional style of basketball, but the Dinos rose above the scrappiness to dominate.
"They play a football-basketball," explained Bee. "They’re smaller than us, and they make up for it by being very aggressive. The games were very physical."
According to Bee, it wasn’t hard for the Dinos to figure out how to outplay their hosts.
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We just had to make a couple of adjustments," she said. "On Saturday, they were able to stay with us for half of the game, but they weren’t able to pull through the whole game."
Doan, whose performance garnered her the Canada West Athlete of the Week award for the second time in four weeks, received accolades from her teammate.
"She played great," Bee exclaimed. "They had a girl on her the whole game, bumping and holding her. The girl was a non-factor and she’s usually one of their senior players. Leighann just made her so tired. She made her run the whole night. [Coach Shawnee Harle] told Leighann, ‘Even if you don’t have the shot, just sprint,’ to tire her out."
Bee had a good weekend offensively, but said that she doesn’t worry about the numbers game.
"I’m not thinking so much about that myself," she noted. "My job is to keep the tempo where we need it. I’m getting better every week. I’m really happy with the first half for myself."
There are enough weapons on the floor at any given time–Doan, Bekar, Payne, McGinn, Laura Jablonski, Jennifer Goldade, Rena Carriere–that Bee can concentrate on her role as field marshall and leave the scoring to her teammates.
"The points will come–a lot of people can score," she said. "But it’s always fun to score."
The Dinos have a break from regular season play until January, but by no means are they taking the time off. They will continue training until Dec. 17. They have just over a week off. until travelling to Edmonton for an exhibition tournament on Dec. 27.
" We’ll keep training until the end of exams, basically, with the ultimate goal of getting better," explained Bee.