The Carleton Ravens women’s basketball team established plenty of program records this season. They finished the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) regular season with an 18-1 record, and earned their first Critelli Cup.
The Ravens line-up earned plenty of accolades this year, as Heather Lindsay and Catherine Traer were named to the OUA First All-Star team, while Lindsay was also a Second Team All-Canadian. Ravens forward Elizabeth Leblanc was also named to the OUA Second All-Star team.
Over the course of the season, the Ravens were consistently ranked within the top five teams in all of U SPORTS, and entered the Final 8 tournament as the number one seed.
Carleton will benefit from the wealth of experience at the U SPORTS women’s basketball Final 8 and their bronze medal victory, as no player on the roster is set to graduate following the conclusion of this season.
“You don’t always just win it all you need to take steps in terms of your program, and we took a great step here today and this weekend,” said Ravens head coach Taffe Charles.
This was the Ravens’ third appearance at the Final 8 in six years, but previously the team had gone winless in four games at the tournament.
“I’ve never been able to win and we got to do that as a group this year,” Traer said. “It’s great for this program and from here we can just build the future and the future looks so bright.”
For the Ravens, another important piece is the returning depth players who were able to step up in the Bronze Medal game at the Final 8 and play large amounts of minutes and contribute to the win, according to Charles.
“I think we can hopefully learn from the experience and it’s one of those things where you gotta go through it to learn from it, and then hopefully we can get back here and we can thrive in these moments,” he said.
This season, the Ravens were one of the top teams in the nation defensively, allowing only 51 points against per game—a feat that was tops in the OUA. But heading into next season, Charles said he believes the team needs to focus on their scoring ability.
“I think we gotta score the ball better, we have opportunities to score and I think we just gotta be more skilled,” he said. “So we’ll be working on our skills during the off season.”
– Photo by Dan Robertson
