KINGSTON, Ont. (February 18, 2020) - The opening round of the OUA playoffs in women's basketball is set to begin this Wednesday night and the Queen's Gaels will host the Laurier Golden Hawks in an opening-round playoff with a spot in the quarter-final on the line. Tickets are available at gogaelsgo.com/tickets and Queen's Students along with Jr. Gaels are FREE. The game will also be streamed live on OUA.tv.
The Gaels finished the season with a 15-7 record, third-best in the East division while Laurier was 10-12 and fourth in the West. Queen's is the 6th seed in the OUA and the Golden Hawks are the 11th seed. The winner will advance to take on the 3rd seed Ryerson on Saturday.
HOSTING AT HOME
The Gaels have earned home-court advantage for the opening playoff round against Laurier but have not won a home playoff contest since 2017 when they defeated Windsor 64-56 in the OUA semi-final.
SEASON SERIES
Queen's and Laurier met one time during the regular season when the Gaels took down Laurier 80-44 on February 1 at the Queen's ARC.
The game was highlighted by a dominant performance from
Julia Chadwick who had 18 points and a career-best 21 rebounds in the victory.
LAST PLAYOFF MEETING
Queen's and Laurier last met in the OUA playoffs in the quarter-finals on February 28, 2014. The Gaels went into Waterloo and upset a No.6 nationally-ranked Golden Hawks team 85-78 in a double-overtime thriller.
Kingston products
Jenny Wright and
Liz Boag had 24 and 12 points respectively in the victory.
STAT LEADERS
This season the Gaels finished as the highest-scoring team in the OUA averaging 79 points per game. Seven different Gaels averaged 7.5 or more points per game led by the trio of
Julia Chadwick (12.7),
Sophie de Goede (12.5) and
Laura Donovan (11.1).
Both Chadwick and de Goede were also forces to be reckoned with on the glass averaging 8.9 and 8.3 rebounds respectively.
Emma Ritcey finished as one of the top three-point shooters in the OUA with a 38.4% mark and led the Gaels in assists per game with 4.1.
For the Golden Hawks, Brianna Iannazzo was the lone Laurier player to average double-digits in scoring with 15.3 per game while Kate Moran paced the Golden Hawks on the boards averaging 6.0 per game.
SCHEDULE
Playoff Round: Wednesday, Feb. 19 | Laurier at Queen's | 6:00 pm
Quarterfinal: Saturday, Feb. 22 | Winner Playoff Round at Ryerson | 6:00 pm
