BY JOHN DECOSTE

Kings County Register

It wasn’t always pretty, but the Acadia women’s basketball team will walk in through the front door of War Memorial Gymnasium for this weekend’s AUBC playoffs.

Despite dropping their final regular season contest 71-38 to UPEI Feb. 23 in Wolfville, Acadia clinched the sixth and final playoff spot when St. F.X. lost twice at Memorial.

The Axewomen would have qualified for the playoffs automatically as hosts, but set themselves a pre-season goal: make the post-season on their own merit.

A 7-13 record isn’t all that impressive, but the seven wins are the most Acadia has managed in a season during Angie McLeod’s four-year tenure as head coach – and, in fact, for a few years before that.

The Axewomen never managed to win more than one game at a time during the season – and ,at one point, they suffered a three-game losing streak – but they did manage to defeat every team in the conference but Dalhousie at least once.

This included an 80-77 upset of first-place Memorial Feb. 16 in St. John’s and a 66-64 win over second-place Cape Breton Jan.20 in Wolfville. Acadia also won four of their eight four-point games.

At the same time, it was still an inconstent season for what remains a largely young and inexperienced team which, despite the best efforts of both Marrla Evans and Sam Nuttall, still lacks a true point guard.

At their best, the Axewomen were good enough to hold off Cape Breton and lead the entire game in their win at Memorial. On the other end, they lost four times to Dal, were 1-3 against UPEI and also lost to SMU and St. F.X., both of whom missed the playoffs.

In their season finale, Acadia was never really in the game against a UPEI squad fighting for its playoff life. Brianne Ozimok led the Axewomen with 11 points, while Kelly DeBow had 13 to lead UPEI.

Saturday’s loss clinched fifth place for UPEI and dropped Acadia to sixth, meaning the Axewomen will open the AUBC championship tournament Friday, Feb. 29 at 6 p.m. against third-ranked Dalhousie. The late game at 8 p.m. will see UPEI taking on fourth-seed UNB.

Friday’s winners will move to the semifinals Saturday, with the lowest remaining seed playing top-ranked Memorial at 6 p.m. and the higher-seeded taking on Cape Breton at 8 p.m. The semifinal winners will meet in the championship Sunday at 1 p.m.

Acadia lost all its regular season games against Dal - by 13, 13, six and five points respectively. They were more competitive in their final two meetings and will need a solid effort to defeat the Tigers Friday.

Acadia will be looking for leadership from seniors Jennifer Bishop and Evans. Bishop is especially effective on defense, where she normally guards the opposition’s best backcourt player.

Offensively, Acadia will lean heavily on its top two scorers, Brianne Ozimok (13.5 points per game, 7.7 rebounds per game) and Becky Mutch (12.3 points, six rebounds). Both Ozimok and Mutch improved greatly from the start of the season, both in terms of scoring, rebounding and overall AUBC game experience. In the win at Memorial, Ozimok had 28 points and Mutch added 21.

Other potential impact players for Acadia include Nuttall (a 39 per cent shooter from three-point range) and AUBC rookie-of-the-year candidate Emma Duinker (8.4 points and 4.6 rebounds per game).