At a critical point in their season, the Keyano Huskies Women’s Basketball team came through with two keys wins on the home court, taking down the Northwestern Polytechnic Wolves at the Syncrude Sport & Wellness Centre over the weekend.  

“It was our first sweep of the year, it was nice to see the kids get two wins,” Head Coach Dwayne Vigilance said.  

Friday, the Huskies rolled to a 73-42 victory over the Wolves followed by a 64-37 result in favour of the Huskies Saturday.  

Four Huskies reached double-digits in Friday’s win, led by a 17-point performance from Kaylynn Tucker. Rookie Danika Cadieux had 14 points off the bench, Jaylynn Twin had 12 of her own and Maja Besic had 10 too. Besic also added 11 rebounds for the double-double.  

Leading 21-9 after the first quarter, the Huskies led by 20 at the half, then outscored the Wolves by 11 in the second half to close out the victory by 31 points.  

Saturday’s action started slow with the Wolves earning an 8-7 lead after one quarter, but the Huskies charged ahead in the second. Including 13 points alone from Tucker, the Huskies scored 25 points in the 10-minute span to lead by 12 at the break.  

The Huskies took that momentum into the third quarter with a 12-6 frame and a 20-11 fourth to finish things off. Tucker finished the game with 24 points and nine rebounds. Emma Tomchuk added 10 points and veteran Casey Gorieu finished with nine points to tie Maja Besic. Gorieu was a perfect 4-for-4 on free throws and made one of the Huskies’ three three-point shots in the game. 

“She always works hard and hopefully this is the game to get the monkey off her back,” Vigilance added. “She just kept shooting. She has the green light and eventually it went in and it did today.”  
 
The Huskies are in the midst of a tight battle in the ACAC’s North Division that has third and sixth place separated by only two points in the standings. With the Huskies in fifth and on the playoff bubble, they’ll need to bring this momentum into their final two weekends of the regular season to lock up a play-in spot.  

“With our young team morale is huge,” Vigilance said. “These two wins will hopefully get us a little more excited to meet SAIT and St. Mary’s in a couple weeks.” 

The Huskies travel to southern Alberta to take on the SAIT Trojans and St. Mary’s University Lightning February 9-10 in their next set of games.