NEWS PHOTO SEAN ROONEY - Rattlers captain Morgan Muir grabs a rebound during her team's consolation semifinal win over NAIT Friday at Medicine Hat College.
It was a good-news day for parity at the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference women’s basketball championships Friday.
The host Medicine Hat Rattlers extended their season, while the two nationally top-ranked teams from the province lost on a day of upsets in the Snake Pit.
“We really felt strong as a team compared to how we were at the beginning of the year,” said fourth-year post Paige Cooper, whose Rattlers beat the NAIT Ooks 66-51 in a consolation semifinal. “We held our own with such a young team, we really proved ourselves.”
Morgan Muir had 26 points and eight steals for Medicine Hat, her four three-pointers devastating but team defence the real story a day after giving top north seed Keyano a run for its money.
“The team had confidence, we thought we’d do well,” said Rattlers coach Clayton Nielsen. “We did a good job of going with the flow and not letting ourselves get too down, that was the difference.”
Medicine Hat went on runs of 11-0 to end the second quarter and 8-0 at the end of the third. Cooper had 11 points in 19 minutes of floor time, while Katelyn Rozdeba added 13 plus 14 rebounds.
Like fifth-year Muir, Cooper will play her final college game Saturday, 1 p.m. against Augustana. It’s a far better prospect than ending with a loss.
“I’m pretty hard on myself, I don’t want to let my team down, I don’t want to let myself down in my final few games,” she said. “We don’t have to save our energy for any other games, we just leave it all on the court.
“It’s exciting that this is where we are at this point.”
By contrast, imagine how fifth-year Ooks guard Sydney Hurlburt felt when one Rattlers fan tried to start a “warm up the bus” chant in the final minute. Hurlburt had an excellent game, 15 points including three three-pointers, but her team only scored two points in the second quarter and never led after that.
Lakeland’s Rustlers and the Keyano Huskies booked spots at nationals in Quebec with huge wins.
The Lloydminster-based Rustlers upset Olds, which won ACAC’s and nationals last year, by a 58-50 score. Hot shooting led by Tori Dugan’s 16 points and rabid defence which held conference player of the year Brittney Thibeaux to 17 points on 5-of-19 shooting were key for the Rustlers, who lost the same semifinal to the Broncos last year.
Jaden Cook added 12 points and Bilge Topaloglu had nine points and 15 rebounds for Lakeland.
Last year’s runner-up Keyano earned its second-straight national berth, beating nationally second-ranked St. Mary’s 69-67 in a wild finish.
Tyshaine Page’s three-pointer with a minute to go held up for the Fort McMurray-based side, though Juhee Anderson had a three-point attempt for the Lightning to win in the dying seconds.
Page had 13 points while Moiyan Toure had 20 points and nine rebounds for Keyano.
Anderson finished with 17 points, while Hannah Helton led St. Mary’s with 24. The Lightning only had eight players to start the weekend and only used seven in the semifinal loss.
St. Mary’s will face Olds for bronze at 3 p.m. Saturday, followed by the gold-medal game between Lakeland and Keyano at 6 p.m.
