Recap The Court

Jacob Smith

Under head coach Chantal Vallée, the Windsor Lancers women’s basketball team went 12-10 last season with a playoff loss to the Brock Badgers at home. They’ve made the playoffs every year dating back to before their historic championship dynasty a decade ago, and this year the goal is the same in a division with shakeup at the top.

The OUA West was won by the Waterloo Warriors last year with the Windsor Lancers finishing third, Guelph second. Windsor was in a race with Brock, TMU and York for playoff positioning through the final stretch of the regular season and a Windsor win over Brock on February 10th gave them the tiebreaker which put them at home for the playoffs.

Their home court advantage didn’t matter as Brock got the victory, the Lancers second time falling to the Badgers in the playoffs in three seasons. Now the Lancers come in with a largely returning squad looking to not only take the division but gain more momentum in the playoffs and make a run towards the championship.

Windsor has usually been a very strong rebounding team, and that has been what makes them standout, and the early test against MacKeely Shantz, Sarah Harvey and the Western Mustangs to kick off the season should give fans a taste of how strong they are this season. With Emily Payne and Jacqueline Urban both coming to Windsor just two weeks after, Lancers fans will get plenty of opportunity to see the front court go to work against tough competition.

To see what the guards have, look no further than that same weekend. The Ottawa Gee-Gees added Ariane Saumure to the backcourt alongside Natsuki Szczokin giving them some great scoring depth and opportunities to play transition basketball off her steals. The Lancers have liked to slow the game down and play physical, and how they’re able to avoid the Gee-Gees speeding it up and doing what their guards do best which is get out and keep the defence off balance, will show a lot of this Lancers guard group.

It’s easy to look at some of the league’s best as a test for the team, but within their division, there’s some real opportunity to capitalize on. The Lancers will play Western twice before they play anyone else in their division, but on January 5th they welcome the Waterloo Warriors followed by the Guelph Gryphons the next night, two division opponents that a win would be huge against. Waterloo has went through some big change this offseason welcoming a group of recruits to replace the core that has graduated that played a big part in their growth over the last 5 years.

The Guelph Gryphons are left with questions about who will be their point guard and how deep their front court is with their losses in the offseason, and based on what teams above them lost and what they’ve kept, there’s opportunity to build on last year and take advantage of these division games as I believe they battle the Western Mustangs for the top of their division.

While I believe a playoff run would require a larger jump in offensive productivity from where they were last season, the Windsor Lancers have an opportunity to capitalize on roster gaps in their division and get themselves ‘into the dance’ once more to try and make a run.