The Memorial Sea-Hawks (13-7) will face the Saint Mary’s Huskies (10-10) in the quarter-finals of the AUS Championships on Friday, February 28th, which take place at the Scotiabank Center in Halifax.
The Hawks head into the tournament after a pair of losses to the #1 seeded UPEI Panthers, while the Huskies come into the #3 vs. #6 matchup after losing 88-63 in their last game against the Acadia Axewomen. Both teams will be looking to put those games behind them and advance to the semi-finals vs. Acadia on Saturday.
The Hawks will need contributions from Haille Nickerson and Alana Short as usual, but the will also need the rest of the team to step up big. A player to watch out for will be 3rd year guard Sammi Deakin-Sharpe. In the absence of point guard Jane Baird, the Hawks will need a solid performance from their backup point guard, who has replaced Baird in the starting lineup after her injury. Another notable player for Memorial is Cameron Longley, who put up a very well rounded performance in the final game of the regular season. She posted 6 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks in the loss against UPEI.
The Huskies will look for production from Alaina McMillan, who averaged 14.6 points per game for the regular season, but finished with only 5 points in 26 minutes vs. Acadia in their last game. Another player that the Hawks will have to stop is 4th year guard Arianna Macias, who finished the season 14th in AUS scoring at 12.3 points per game. She finished with 13 points, along with 3 steals, in their game against Acadia. 4th year guard Estelle Eduardo is also coming off an impressive performance with 12 points, 2 rebounds and 2 steals against Acadia.
Coach English says the team is focused on growing more as a team, as he says that has been one of the main reasons for success this season. He commented on the matchup with Saint Mary’s saying this: “We need to communicate by committee on the defensive end. SMU run a lot of actions that move your defense so we need to communicate and trust each other. If we do that I think we have a good shot.”
The Hawks will look to limit the scoring of Macias and McMillan, while playing good team defense against a Huskies squad that moves the ball well, as they sit at 2nd in the AUS in assists per game with 14.8. If they can do that and get contributions from everyone on the team, Memorial will be poised to make a deep run in the tournament.
The Sea-Hawks and Huskies play at 6:00 PM NST on Friday at the Scotiabank Center. You can watch the games online at www.austv.ca, follow the live scores of the games on www.goseahawks.ca or follow the games on Twitter.
Written by: Darnell Downs