Women's Basketball Huskies topped by Clippers in quarter-final, refocus to battle for fifth
Friday may not have been the day the Keyano Huskies Women’s Basketball team intended, but it was certainly a lesson for the team’s young core that Head Coach Dwayne Vigilance hopes they take stock of to remember for future playoff battles.
The Huskies were overtaken by the Briercrest College Clippers to the tune of a 71-51 result in Friday’s quarter-finals at the 2025 Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) Women’s Basketball Championship in Edmonton, Alta.
“A little disappointing,” Vigilance said of the performance. “It’s not really about the result; I think it’s mostly we didn’t battle too and fight and work on the things that we needed to do, but Briercrest is a really good team, experienced team at least it’s some experience for our young kids to move into next year.”
The Clippers came out firing to lead by 10 after one quarter, by 13 at the half, and added seven points to that advantage in the second half.
While the final score would indicate the Huskies didn’t sink as many shots as the Clippers, the Huskies final shooting percentage from the field on the day (41.3%) was ahead of 12 of their regular season performances.
What didn’t help was attempting their second-fewest number of shots from the field in the regular season or playoffs or allowing the Clippers to shoot north of 53 percent from the field.
By a slim 4-3 margin the Clippers out made the Huskies from beyond the arc and made five more free throws than the Huskies on a nearly-similar amount of attempts.
Second year Danika Cadieux and rookie Princess Jumira Castaneda had the aforementioned three-point shots on the day for the Huskies. Rookie Alexis Kemp earned her sixth start of the season and shot 50% from the field on six attempts.
“It just shows how promising we can be in the future,” Vigilance commented on his team’s young group. “I think there’s some really good freshmen that can step in and do some big things in the next couple years.
“You saw that by them knocking down some threes and running around a little bit. The future is bright for us.”
Jaylynn Twin earned Player of the Game honours, leading her side with 16 points.
Despite being denied a shot at a medal, the Huskies still have the opportunity to play for as high as fifth place in the conference.
“Any time you can play another basketball game and extend to another basketball game, it’s great for us and for our young kids it’s really good that we can get into a game tomorrow,” Vigilance continued. “Hopefully we can win that and play for fifth and sixth.”
The Huskies will take on the Concordia Thunder at 1:00pm Saturday, March 1 for a spot in the 5th-6th game. Tip-off is scheduled for 1:00pm MT and will be broadcast on https://acactv.ca/.
