Final 8 Roundup: Alberta Pandas set to meet Laval Rouge et Or in consolation final

VANCOUVER — With tightly contested wins in their respective consolation semifinals, the Alberta Pandas and Laval Rouge et Or are locked in for a consolation final matchup and a chance at a fifth-place finish in the U Sports Final 8 national championship.  

In the first semifinal of the lower bracket, the Pandas beat the Saint Mary’s Huskies 68-61. After a close loss to the host top-seeded Saskatchewan Huskies in the quarterfinal, the defensively adept Pandas had more to prove after falling to the losing bracket.

In a RSEQ final rematch that had a lot more to do with pride than it did a pursuit of fifth place, Laval held onto a tight 63-61 lead in a blow-for-blow matchup with the Bishop’s Gaiters. 

Consolation semifinal 1: Alberta Pandas 68, Saint Mary’s Huskies 61

In a rematch of last year’s consolation final, the Pandas ended the Huskies’ season with a 68-61 victory, securing one last dance for fifth-year Claire Signatovich and the Pandas’ tight-knit veteran group.

“It’s my last year, so I really wanted to win and just be able to play one more with my team,” Signatovich said.

“We all love each other a lot,” she added. “We’re a very, very close team … It’s just a great group of girls to get to play with.”

While familiar with each other, Alberta has also seen a lot of Saint Mary’s in the past three seasons — the Pandas took the U Sports bronze medal over the Huskies in 2023, while the Huskies clapped back in 2024 in the consolation final.

“We’ve played them a lot at nationals in the past couple of years and the teams are quite similar,” Signatovich said. “The scout was pretty much the same it’s been for a long time.”

The Pandas’ revenge tour got off to a strong start, with guard Annacy Palmer netting 10 points in the first quarter alone, helping her team to an early 31-22 lead. The margins between the squads grew increasingly slim thereafter, but the Pandas held the edge in shooting efficiency, walking into the second half with a two-point lead.

However, Huskies’ guard Clara Gascoigne, who notched a team-high 16 points, wrestled the lead back with a three-pointer late in the third quarter, setting up a dramatic final quarter.

“Saint Mary’s is a really good team, it was definitely a grind,” Signatovich said. “They hit a lot of threes on us.”

Signatovich said taking away the three-point option was Alberta’s focus heading into the final quarter, and it worked. The Pandas successfully stalled Gascoigne and Huskies player of the game Aliyah Fraser. Signatovich and guard Jayden Tanner then put the game on ice with five fourth-quarter points each.

Gascoigne and the Huskies worked desperately to find buckets, but were limited to just seven points in the final quarter. This was Gascoigne’s first-ever game against the Pandas on account of a sprained ankle and illness taking her out of the previous two national tournaments. But she was still well-versed with the history between the two teams.

“This was the tie-breaker today and they got it from us, but they’re a great team and I wish them all the luck tomorrow in the consolation finals,” she said.

It was the last game in a Huskies uniform for four Saint Mary’s players, Gascoigne included. That quartet has been with the team for six years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which Gascoigne said brought them even closer.

“It’s bittersweet, there’s lots of tears in the locker room where coach is kind of saying goodbyes,” she said. “Obviously not the outcome we wanted, but it doesn’t really take away from our year.”

Consolation semifinal 2: Laval Rouge et Or 63, Bishop’s Gaiters 61

Despite an early misstep allowing the Bishop’s Gaiters to stretch a 14-point lead in the early minutes of the game, the Laval Rouge et Or corrected course to end the season of their conference rival.

For her on-court leadership and 15-point performance, Rouge et Or guard Léa-Sophie Verret earned player of the game honours. The veteran playmaker stepped up against the rival Gaiters, especially after a difficult quarterfinal loss to the uOttawa Gee-Gees, where she was held to just three points.

“I’m proud of her because she had a tough provincial, she had a tough game yesterday and we badly needed her to step up today and she did,” Laval coach Guillaume Giroux said.

Two weeks earlier, the Gaiters upset Laval, defending RSEQ champions, to earn their first conference title in 21 years. As Verret was held to just four points, Bishop’s forward and RSEQ MVP Victoria Gauna led the conference coup, snatching 14 boards and putting up 20 points against the top team in Quebec.

The Gaiters came out the gate hard in this rematch, and the unlikely RSEQ victors made Laval look like the underdogs. Bishop’s opened the game with a 14-point run before the Rouge et Or even put a point on the board. It was only a matter of time before Laval started gaining ground, but they still ended the quarter in a 21-10 hole.

“Nothing was working for us,” Verret said. “We couldn’t get paint touches, we didn’t get shots open and they were hitting threes [and] they were getting easy buckets.” 

As Laval’s trusted playmaker, Verret gave the Rouge et Or some footing in the second quarter, bolstered by her buzzer-beater to end the half. Still, Laval only chipped five points away from the 11-point lead the Gaiters built in the first frame.

But Laval finally eked out their first lead of the game two-and-a-half minutes into the third quarter when guard Sabrine Khelifi sank a decisive three-pointer. But the Gaiters kept up with Laval, who only carried a narrow 46-44 lead into the game’s final frame.

In the fourth quarter, Bishop’s and Laval went blow-for-blow as both teams forcibly took turns frontrunning. But even as the Gaiters were only a basket away from tying the game in its final minute, Laval’s defence locked up to keep their season alive.

In avenging their RSEQ title upset, the Rouge et Or earned themselves a meeting with the Alberta Pandas in the consolation final on March 15. The two last met in the quarterfinal round of the 2024 U Sports Final 8 national championship, where Laval came out on top by a 65-57 score. 

But for Laval, this bottom-bracket victory held a lot more weight than just a chance at fifth place in the country.

“It’s a pride game, and we had a statement to put out here that Bishop’s [isn’t] better than us,” Verret said. “[We] beat ourselves [in RSEQ], so we just wanted to prove to them and to us that we’re better than them and we deserve our place here.”

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Featured photo by Janson Duench / The Charlatan.