In a series of events eerily similar to their 2024 Capital Hoops Classic win, the Carleton Ravens women’s basketball team once again defied the odds to oust the uOttawa Gee-Gees 58-54 in the event’s latest installment.
Through three quarters, the Gee-Gees had the Ravens on the brink of their first loss since Dec. 6, 2023, which also came against uOttawa.
“We were the only ones to do it last year and I was hoping we were gonna do it again this year,” Gee-Gees head coach Rose-Anne Joly said.
Even though the Ravens were in familiar territory when they trailed by double digits entering the game’s final half, Ravens head coach Dani Sinclair said she was uneasy.
“I was a bit worried in the first half,” Sinclair said. “They sort of dominated us in a lot of ways.”
The undefeated Ravens appeared shell-shocked in the game’s opening minutes, quickly falling behind by 10 points. They couldn’t penetrate the paint offensively, leading them to bleed chances on the other side of the court. The Gee-Gees’ Natsuki Szczokin led the charge en route to her game-high 19 points.
“They had a different game plan than the last game, and it just took us off guard,” Ravens guard Kyana-Jade Poulin said. “We didn’t know how to respond.”
The Ravens walked all over the Gee-Gees earlier in the season in an 81-59 victory on Dec. 4.
With the score sitting at 30-19 in favour of the Gee-Gees after two quarters, Sinclair delivered a new message to her players.
“Players and teams that make this game bigger than it is play poorly. Just be who you are all the time — it’s really not that serious.”
Sinclair said she told her top players to stay calm, an ironic request from the fiery bench boss.
“I can’t ever tell everybody to calm down because I’m not calm myself,” Sinclair admitted, laughing. “But they’re used to that.”
Right on cue, Carleton got back on track. As the Gee-Gees held them out of the paint, the Ravens stood back to the arc and started firing. The buckets rained down.
“Carleton is not a high-volume shooter from the three-point line and they had to do that,” Joly said.
After trailing from tip-off, Carleton finally gained its first lead of the game with less than nine minutes left in the game when Zerina Duvnjak sunk a decisive three.
But the switch flipped most emphatically for Poulin, who single-handedly dropped a trio of threes in the fourth quarter. Two of those came back-to-back to pad the Ravens’ freshly secured lead late in the game. All 18 of Poulin’s points came from behind the arc.
WBB | KJP is putting on a CLINIC from three-point land! 18 POINTS FOR POULIN! pic.twitter.com/ns5mJM73Mt
— Carleton Ravens (@CURavens) February 8, 2025
“My teammates gave me the confidence to shoot them,” Poulin said of her three-point barrage.
“She always understands when the team needs to be carried. She’s done that for us for three years now,” Sinclair said.
True to their trade, Carleton locked the game down in the game’s final minutes with stifling defensive coverage.
Although they granted the Gee-Gees one last gasp when Allie McCarthy sunk three free throws to step within striking distance, Ravens guard Dorcas Buisa slammed the door shut with two baskets of her own.
Carleton’s resurgent performance snapped the Gee-Gees’ eight-game win streak and solidified their place as the nation’s reigning basketball powerhouse. The Gee-Gees’ Joly acknowledged her team’s struggles to find a way against Carleton, but maintained that “it’s really never about them for us.”
Still, any chance of an OUA championship almost certainly involves another clash with the Ravens, who still have yet to hit their full stride. Beware for any team that lies in Carleton’s path: Sinclair said they found their next gear in the game’s final half.
“The ball goes in when you’re playing in rhythm.”
Featured photo by Darren Tran.
