Host Axewomen “feeling confident” entering AUBC playoffs: McLeod

BY JOHN DECOSTE

NovaNewsNow.com

The Acadia women’s basketball team is “feeling confident” entering this weekend’s Atlantic Universities Basketball Conference championship tournament in Wolfville, says Axewomen head coach Angie McLeod.

This weekend’s event not only marks the first time in a while Acadia will host the marquee women’s event, but also the first time in several seasons the Axewomen will be part of the playoff field.

Acadia would have been automatically part of the tournament as the host team, but the Axewomen earned their spot in the ‘final six’, finishing sixth with a 7-12 record, the most wins for an Acadia team in McLeod’s four seasons as head coach.

Their sixth-place seeding means Acadia will open the tournament Friday at 6 p.m. against the Dalhousie Tigers, third-place finishers in the regular season and winners of all four of their games against Acadia this season.

McLeod points out, however, that the Axewomen, after a pair of 13-point losses earlier in the campaign, lost their two most recent games against Dal by six and five points.

“I’m kind of glad we’re matching up against Dal, and the girls are too,” McLeod said Monday. “We’ve played them four times, and we know exactly what we’re going to see.”

The Acadia players, she said, were “a bit ticked off from the last game we played against them (a 57-52 loss Feb. 9 in Wolfville). They really want this game. We have to get back to what we do well, and I feel if we play our best, it’s anybody’s game.”

Without question ‘the best’ for Acadia this season was their performance in an 80-77 win over the top-ranked Memorial SeaHawks Feb. 16 in St. John’s – the game that more than any other, ensured the Axewomen would make the playoffs on their own merit.

In that game, Acadia led almost the entire 40 minutes. Second-year forward Brianne Ozimok was “unstoppable” en route to 28 points, and Becky Mutch added 21.

Both Ozimok and Mutch will be keys to success for Acadia on Friday if they hope to upset Dal. “It took Brianne the first term to get back in the groove (following serious knee surgery last year), but she’s had a great second half,” McLeod said.

Mutch, in her third year, “has added some things to her game this season, and is shooting the ball very well.” McLeod has also been pleased with what Emma Duinker, an AUBC Rookie of the Year candidate, has been able to bring to the team in her rookie season.

Dunker, a Horton graduate, started 14 of Acadia’s 20 regular season games and scored an average of 8.5 points per game while showing unusual maturity for a first-year player.

The Axewomen got a boost when Jennifer Bishop was accepted into Acadia’s School of Education last fall, allowing her to return for a fifth and final season. Bishop’s veteran presence, especially on defense, has been vital to the Axewomen all season.

Marrla Evans and Sam Nuttall have split time at the point guard position, and while neither is a true point guard, Evans, another fifth-year player, “has used her minutes well.” Nuttall’s 39 per cent shooting from three-point range was another plus.

McLeod stressed that the Axewomen are excited to be in the playoffs, and especially “excited to be hosting.” In fact, “the biggest thing might be getting them to relax.”

At the same time, though, McLeod admits she and her team “like the underdog role,” and are prepared to take it as far as they can this weekend.

“We’re turning the corner,” she said of the Axewomen, who defeated every team in the conference at least once this season except Dal – something they are hopeful of remedying Friday. “I feel we can beat anybody, but then again, so can everybody else.”