Cougars earn playoff sweep over Victoria

It wasn’t end-to-end dominance, but the University of Regina Cougars women’s basketball team turned things on when it mattered and punched their ticket to the Canada West semi finals.

The team completed their sweep over the Victoria Vikes Friday night with an 81-60 victory.

For the second straight game, the Cougars struggled to pull away in the first half of the game against the Vikes.

This has been a common thread throughout most of the Cougars 2018-19 season and it’s something Head Coach Dave Taylor said needs to stop as they get further into the playoffs.

“It’s a dangerous way to play, it can kill your coach and against top-end teams you can be down too much so you’re always playing with fire a little bit, we’ve got to stop doing that,” Taylor said.

The Cougars found their game in the second half of Friday’s matchup, outscoring the Vikes by 18 in the final two frames.

It means the Cougars will be heading off to the semi finals but it was a bittersweet moment for one Cougars player.

Christina McCusker is the only fifth-year player on the Cougars roster this season. While the Cougars still have a chance to host a semi-final series, the most likely path has them going to Calgary, meaning McCusker played her final games on the U of R court.

“It’s a little bit sad to play your last game at home but it could be worse, I could be on the other team and play my last game ever right,” McCusker said.

She said some of her fondest memories on the Regina court is winning the Canada West banner at home last season, and getting a chance to play in the U Sports Final Eight tournament in the Queen City.

“When the crowd was packed and there’s people up on the track and it was the best atmosphere I’ve ever played in.”

The team will need to wait for the Calgary-UNBC series to end to find out who they will play. That series will go next weekend.