Recap The Court

Jacob Smith

It’s their preseason debut and a loss against Oakland University but the Laurentian Voyageurs women’s basketball team showed glimpses of what they’ll be through the 2024 OUA season. A lot of the roster getting playing time, rookies performing well, point guards stepping forward as facilitators, Laurentian has a lot of opportunities with what their 2024 roster will most likely be.

Starting with the defensive end, Laurentian has been a paint-focused team for several years going back to the early days of the Tabin sisters and even before. The strong point of their half court defence is their rebounding and tier paint presence, and Emilie Lafond leading the group of post players showed that could continue this year. Playing on the starting unit with Audrey-Anne Labreche, Lauren Robertson-Martin, Megan Axiak and Molly Adams, the pairing of Emilie and Lauren fuels a lot of the Voyageurs second-chances and controlling the paint for defensive rebounds.

What the paint presence does for the first unit is make up a little bit for what I think the Voyageurs second unit does more than the first, which is pressure on the perimeter from guards. The speed and nonstop attack from the sub unit once they came on the floor put more pressure on Oakland and overall during the season will most likely be the group creating more of the turnovers.

The Voyageurs at least in their game against Oakland, had two different units with two noticeably different methods of attack. The first unit being the slower more precise and calculated group while the second took advantage of speed and quick change of direction to try and attack screens and get to the rim off the dribble.

Led by Princess Bernardino, the Voyageurs subs added a little bit of a change of pace that Oakland had to get used to, and with how relentless they were trying to create mismatches to attack downhill on a screen, they can tire a lot of teams out who maybe put in their subs to just hold steady until the starters can come back in. Having an extra juice off the bench is what a lot of teams look for in their 6th and 7th player in the rotation.

Laurentian having a second group with a completely different pace, led by guards who make quick decisions and the emergence of a rookie in Cadence Pecore who gives the shooting the first unit gets with Megan Axiak, they add another level to the Voyageurs that maybe teams prior didn’t really have.

Ending off with rookie Cadence Pecore, my biggest takeaway from her debut in a Voyaguers uniform is the confidence. Being comfortable taking deep shots or driving the rim, as a rookie who will be a part of the faster paced bench unit, is important to maintain the shooting that the starters bring and adding another three-point weapon to the team to manipulate how defences play and open up the paint for the attack of the guards. How she played in just her first game not being afraid to trust her instincts and take the shots or attack the lanes she knows she can take advantage of is a great sign for how Cadence will evolve with the program.

It was only one game but there’s a lot we can take away and a lot we can look into as a key towards the future.