Two weeks after capturing their third U Sports nationwide championship in program historical past, the College of Saskatchewan Huskies ladies’s basketball group isn’t able to shake that gold medal feeling.
The group raised the ‘Bronze Child’ trophy excessive in entrance of family and friends on their dwelling court docket Monday.
“I feel we’re all on cloud 9 nonetheless,” mentioned Huskies star guard and U Sports activities ladies’s basketball athlete of the 12 months Gage Grassick. “Particularly simply having the ability to stroll out in entrance of all the supporters who’ve supported us all through the season.”
The Huskies ladies’s group is coming off an 85-66 victory within the U Sports activities gold medal recreation on March 16 over the Carleton Ravens, bringing a nationwide title again to Saskatoon for the primary time since 2020.
It was a second this system constructed towards all season. After dropping the primary two video games of the 12 months to the Calgary Dinos, they ran the desk the remainder of the 12 months, going undefeated in 24 straight video games.
The nationwide title additionally served as redemption for the Huskies after dropping within the 2024 nationwide championship recreation to Carleton.
“There was one aim,” mentioned head coach Lisa Thomaidis. “We needed to avenge our nationwide last loss, however that’s quite a bit simpler mentioned than carried out. To get all the best way again to a nationwide championship recreation two years in a row is so exhausting. So it’s a must to be actually good, however then you definitely additionally must be a bit fortunate.”
The brand new nationwide champions have been amongst dozens of Huskies athletes acknowledged at Ron and Jane Graham Centre Courtroom on Monday to have fun a real banner 12 months for this system.
Together with the ladies’s basketball victory, the Huskies additionally nabbed a trio of bronze medals at nationals with the boys’s volleyball, ladies’s monitor and subject, and males’s hockey groups.
In addition to bringing three Canada West titles again to Saskatchewan, together with a memorable win for the Huskies males’s hockey group on dwelling ice a couple of weeks in the past towards Mount Royal.
Get breaking Nationwide information
For information impacting Canada and all over the world, join breaking information alerts delivered on to you after they occur.
“It simply speaks volumes concerning the folks which are right here which are dedicated to excellence,” mentioned reigning Canada West males’s hockey coach of the 12 months Brandin Cote. “When that occurs, all of us profit from it. Whenever you get nice people and nice athletes in right here that wish to be right here, to take that to a different degree, that is what occurs.”
The Huskies ladies’s monitor and subject group not solely secured a nationwide bronze medal as a group however seven medals in both particular person occasions or group relays.
After dropping a good 3-0 recreation in U Sports activities semi-finals to the Concordia Stingers, the Huskies males’s hockey group circled and beat the TMU Daring 4-1 within the nationwide bronze medal recreation to search out the rostrum in Ottawa.
As for the Huskies males’s volleyball group, they rebounded from a semi-final loss to the eventual U Sports activities nationwide champions from Brandon College to seize bronze over the College of Sherbrooke in 4 units.
In line with Peter Stoicheff, College of Saskatchewan president, the Huskies’ medal haul is reflective of the assist seen all year long for his or her 15 athletic applications.
“I don’t actually know of one other college out of 98 universities in Canada that has the sort of assist that our Huskies Athletics has,” mentioned Stoicheff. “I don’t wish to misspeak, perhaps there are a pair. However I haven’t seen it.”
Thomaidis, who additionally took dwelling Canada West ladies’s basketball coach of the 12 months honours after breaking the convention’s all-time wins file, echoed the identical sentiment.
“Saskatoon and the U of S, they care about college athletics,” mentioned Thomaidis. “You possibly can’t say that about a variety of locations throughout Canada. It’s a precedence right here and you’ll inform. It’s necessary, the assist is behind us and it feels actually good when you may compete and characterize a complete neighborhood that’s behind you.”
Thomaidis added that it’s been not less than 20 years since she’s seen this sort of achievement all through all Huskies sports activities mixed.
Whether or not the wins got here on the ice, court docket or monitor, the Huskies are calling this season considered one of their most profitable in a long time.
For Grassick, who dropped 35 factors within the group’s gold medal victory over Carleton, it’s a mirrored image on the excessive requirements achieved at each degree of this system.
“You take a look at everybody who’s on the court docket right this moment, that quantity of athletes who’ve succeeded this 12 months is unimaginable,” mentioned Grassick. “I feel it simply speaks volumes of the coaches, the athletes, the trainers, everybody behind the scenes who get these athletes prepared.”
The Huskies will now put a ribbon on their 2024-25 season and start making ready for his or her subsequent Canada West season within the fall.
Whereas that can embody the same old recruiting for Thomaidis and different coaches on campus, her plate will now embody ordering some rings for her championship athletes.
“Form of again the place U of S belongs, I’d say,” mentioned Thomaidis. “We’ve got super assist, unimaginable student-athletes, so I anticipate there’s extra of this to return down the highway.”
The following main occasion on the Huskies calendar would be the soccer program’s annual spring rookie camp, which is able to kick off with their Canine’s Breakfast fundraiser on Could 1, that includes former Canadian NFL tight finish Luke Willson as visitor speaker.
© 2025 World Information, a division of Corus Leisure Inc.
Source link