The Carleton Ravens women’s basketball team sealed their place in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Final Four with a 68-51 win over the Laurier Golden Hawks on Feb. 25.
The Ravens will now hit the road to Kingston and take on the McMaster Marauders on Mar. 3 in hopes of clinching a spot in the OUA Gold Medal game the following night.
Heading into the game, the Ravens had wrapped up a 18-1 regular season, and hadn’t lost since opening night against the Algoma Thunderbirds.
However, Carleton found themselves knotted at 11-11 in the first quarter, and Ravens head coach Taffe Charles said he was frustrated by the performance.
“I don’t think we played particularly well in the first quarter, we could have played a lot better than we showed but I’m happy to get the result,” Charles said. “Some kids didn’t play as well as they could have, got a little tight and nervous but the stakes were high and I guess we are just happy to move on.”
But after that first quarter the Ravens managed to open up the defence more and create space on the perimeter, scoring four straight three-point shots to open up a 25-21 lead.
Laurier tried to halt the momentum Carleton was building by using both their allotted time outs in the second quarter, but the Ravens pushed further ahead, going on a 9-4 run to finish the half with a 34-25 lead.
“After the first quarter, we just try to get them to calm down and play some defence. We’re a pretty good defensive team so it was just required for us to stay calm, and hopefully that opens things up for us on offence,” Charles said.
Charles’ game plan seemed to pan out as the game progressed, Carleton forced Laurier into 15 turnovers and scored 21 points off those free possessions.
Carleton continued their offensive push in the third quarter, and paired with some tough defence, they finished the third quarter 51-36 ahead, outscoring Laurier 17-11.
With a comfortable lead, the fourth quarter was a closer in scoring, Carleton scoring 17 to Laurier’s 15, leaving the final score 68-51 to the home team.
Carleton will now prepare to take on McMaster in the next round of the playoffs on Mar. 3, hosted at Queen’s.
“I’m happy to be going to the next round, but obviously we’ve got to be better if we want to go nationals,” Charles said.
– Photo by Trevor Swann
