Recap The Court

Jacob Smith

I’m here to explain the OUA women’s basketball league to you. What’s happened so far this year and how the teams got to this point, in a very short summary so you can get the basics without needing to look it up. Let’s begin.

So you have the reigning champs, the Carleton Ravens who won last year and the year before, and they’re trying to 3-peat as national champions for the first time since the 2010-2015 Windsor Lancers. They are the best defensive team you’re going to find in the league, and they need it, because they’re in a OUA East division with the second and third best team record wise in the league over the last 3 years, the Ottawa Gee-Gees and Queen’s Gaels. The Ottawa Gee-Gees are a team who plays fast with weapons everywhere all engined by the play of Natsuki Szczokin while the Gaels are in a transition period from a core that graduated last year, but have found their groove and are on an impressive run behind the play of Katrina Renon and Mikayla McFarlane.

Carleton is in a fluid transition from the core that won them their first national championship of the back-to-back, to a newer group who will pick up the pieces and go on to hold the legacy. Chasing them outside of Queen’s and Ottawa consistently over the past few years is two teams from the OUA Central, the Brock Badgers and TMU Bold. TMU going off the play of last year’s rookie of the year candidates Catrina Garvey and Hailey Franco-DeRyck, while Brock is coached by a former TMU assistant Shae Dheensaw in her first year and led by national player of the year candidate Madalyn Weinert.

Out in the west you have the Guelph Gryphons who play through the paint led by Renee Armstrong, Julia Colavecchia their primary shooter, and Alexis Wright their main ball handler. Right below them the Windsor Lancers have exploded this year thanks to their improved guard play and the Western Mustangs with a couple senior transfers in Kailey Reimer and Jenna Button.

Outside of the top teams in every division you have teams like the Waterloo Warriors who have one of the best forwards in the league in Nehita Oko-Oboh being the centre of a lot of what they do especially defensively. The McMaster Marauders are a rather young team with the constant contributor being one of the best mid-range shooters in the league Cassie Joli-Coeur.

The Laurier Golden Hawks are a team who’s been pushed by their guard play and now that’s Miranda Campbell and Cassidy Hirtle. The Laurentian Voyageurs have one of the rookie of the year candidates in my opinion in Cadence Pecore really stepping into a large role with the team as one of the primary point guards. The Nipissing Lakers are led by an underrated trio in the league in Sophie Milner, Katelyn DeCook and Megan McCarter. Ally Burke at Lakehead, Kiara Leveridge at York, Raya Hafez at UofT, the OUA has players across the league that will make you want to grab popcorn, and the season is just getting good.