Recap The Court

Jacob Smith

The OUA Critelli Cup finalists were decided on Wednesday, and the matchup in sight is a familiar picture. The Carleton Ravens will host the Queen’s Gaels on Saturday at 7pm EST to hoist the Critelli Cup. The reigning champs looking for back-to-back, going against the team they beat in the championship, hungry for revenge.

There were only two games out of the 10 played in the first three rounds of the playoffs, where the lower seed won, Ottawa and TMU beating a higher seed in the second round. Outside of those two games, it has been whoever finished the regular season better, won in the playoffs. That led us to the final we have coming, a rematch of last season between the Ravens and Gaels, the one and two seeds. Let’s look at the champs.

Carleton played the Ottawa Gee-Gees in the semifinal and won 75-51. Through the play of Kali Pocrnic, Jacqueline Urban and Kyana-Jade Poulin, Carleton consistently got their way around the rim and outscored the Gee-Gees 42-16 inside the paint with the help of 17 offensive rebounds. Carleton established their presence inside early and went there often with Urban finishing with 24 points on 12/18 shooting.

Carleton was able to pass their way out of the pressure of the Ottawa guards, and Kali Pocrnic and Tatyanna Burke worked in tandem facilitating the Ravens offence as their defence created opportunities. Jacqueline finished with 17 rebounds but she was one of five Ravens who finished the game with 4+ rebounds, showing a team effort to take control of the glass, and a team bought into playing together and sticking to their game plan.

Carleton used the end of the second and start of the third quarter to go on a run and separate themselves from the Gee-Gees, and on the other side of the bracket, their opponent did the same.

The Queen’s Gaels went up against the TMU Bold in Kingston in the semifinals and won 67-49. The Gaels trying to draw in the TMU guards, attacked inside the paint early with Laura Donovan getting to the line and creating chances around the rim. As the Gaels continued to draw attention inside, that opened up the three-pointer for players like Donovan and Isabella Gaudet, and the Gaels used a balanced attack of short and long range to constantly force TMU’s defence to adjust and shift.

Defensively, Queen’s matched TMU’s effort inside the paint, primarily through the 29 combined rebounds of Julia Chadwick and Bridget Mulholland. While TMU found a lot of success in prior games attacking inside, Queen’s took away the paint and won on the glass, giving them an advantage in 17 second chance points and 32 points inside the paint.

As far as the Gaels and Ravens matching up, it doesn’t take much searching to find the important matchup. It’s the paint, and it’s Julia Chadwick and Jacqueline Urban. 25 points and 17 rebounds for Julia Chadwick, 24 points and 17 rebounds for Jacqueline Urban in their last games. They are two of the best post players in the OUA and they are coming off incredibly strong performances. They both play with calculated aggression inside, and whoever is able to gain the upper hand, whether it’s the quicker first step or the more physical presence, may just win their team the game.

Shifting to outside, the focus will be on Bella Gaudet and Kyana-Jade Poulin offensively to supplement the one-two punch of Donovan-Chadwick and Pocrnic-Urban. Playing off the catch, how they are both able to use their sweep and go ability to get to the rim and get close to mid-range shots helps the movement of the offence and creates other opportunities off cutters and swing outs for threes.

The Ravens took the last championship matchup between these two teams, and the last time they played, they both met up later in March in the U SPORTS Final 8 championship final.