Gees will visit Carleton next Saturday for provincial championship
The Gee-Gees women’s basketball team has accomplished an awful lot in head coach Rose-Anne Joly’s tenure. Since Joly took over as head coach for the 2021-22 season following Andy Sparks’ retirement, she has led the team to a 65-15 regular season record.
It’s hard to ask for much more for an early-career head coach, but there was one glaring absence on Joly’s resume — a national championship appearance. Saturday, that all changed, as the #4 Gee-Gees jumped out to an early lead over the Windsor Lancers in the OUA semifinals and never looked back, dispatching the #8 Lancers 81-53.
“It feels amazing,” said a tearful Joly after the game. “I mean, kudos to the team. I think we’ve worked hard. I said it in a previous interview, but this was four years in the making. It wasn’t just one season, we learned to lose in order to be here.”
The Gee-Gees entered the game as comfortable favourites. They finished the regular season with a 19-3 record, were coming off a blowout win in the quarterfinals over Queen’s, and handled Windsor with ease in their previous meeting.
But few could have expected the showing that transpired at Montpetit Hall, a showing that will come to be known as “the Bailey Russell game.”
Russell, a second-year guard, has been a dependable bench piece all season long, while starting four games and averaging 6.9 points per game. The Fredericton, N.B. native has contributed mostly through her long-range shooting. Her regular season three-point mark of 38.4 per cent placed her second in the conference.
On Saturday though, Russell looked more like a certain Golden State Warriors guard than an OUA bench piece. With the Gees leading 9-7 midway through the first quarter, Russell would be subbed in and head to the right corner. There, she would splash her first three of the night off an Emily Payne pass.
That three would kickstart a Gee-Gees run, and they exited the first quarter up nine. The first quarter was an appropriate trailer for the thriller that was the second, on Oscars weekend. In a span of 25 seconds, Russell would hit back-to-back threes from the left break.
Just over a minute later, with the shot clock at one, Gees point guard Natsuki Szczokin would dump off to Russell, five feet behind the right break with a defender in her face. Russell heaved up what seemed like a prayer.
But just like her previous three looks, the ball would touch no rim on it’s way in. Windsor would call a timeout down 19 points and never recover, and a beaming Russell would make her way to the Gees bench as the crowd erupted. She would add another triple in the fourth and finish with a career-and -game-high five threes and 20 points.
“I just try and keep shooting whenever I’m open,” said the 5’9” guard after the game. “My coach supports me to fully to take whatever shots when I’m open. [I’m going to] just keep shooting them and just hope they keep going in, tonight it was me but any night it could be anyone.”
Joly said that Russell’s confidence was a little low entering the playoffs. “I remember telling her, ‘the next one will always go in,’ and I will always trust with her and [Allie McCarthy] that the next one will go in.”
Women advance to nationals for the first time in Joly’s head coaching tenure
The win booked the women’s ticket to the national championships, set to be hosted from March 13–16 at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. The women’s and men’s championships are set to be jointly hosted for the first time since the U of O hosted them in March of 2020.
Joining the women will be the men’s team, who booked their ticket with a similar dominant win over TMU a couple hours later. Longtime men’s head coach James Derouin is thrilled not just for his team, but for Joly’s as well.
“Rose’s first trip — first of many,” said Derouin after the men’s game. “I know she really wanted it.” Derouin joked that with the teams now set to head west after their respective provincial championships next weekend, the success may take a “little hit on the budget.”
On a truly special night for basketball at the University of Ottawa, Derouin put it simply. “It’s pretty awesome to see what our basketball teams have built here.”
Despite their 18-4 record entering the game and a veteran head coach in Chantel Valleé, the Lancers looked off kilter all night, as the Gees press forced the visitors into 22 turnovers. Szczokin, McCarthy, and Ivany Rheault-Langue would join Russell in double digits and the Gee-Gees would finish the game with a 10-of-23 mark from beyond the arc overall.
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Up next is a third meeting with the still-undefeated Carleton Ravens. The Gees tasted blood in the water at Capital Hoops in early February and entered halftime holding a 30-19 lead. However, that would disappear into thin air by the end of the game and the #1 Ravens would take their fourth straight matchup at the rivalry game 58-54.
“We’re super excited, we’re super ready,” said Russell about the rematch. “We think we can compete with them — we know we can compete with them, it’s just going to be a battle.”
Joly doesn’t care that the match will go at the Raven’s Nest. “We’ve beat them at Carleton before, and we’re able to do it again. I’m excited … my parents are going to be there, our friends are going to be there, our crowd is going to be there.”
Looking ahead to nationals the following weekend, not a single Gee has played on the stage before. In 2019, the last time the program made the big dance, Joly was an assistant coach under Sparks, while current assistant Sarah Besselink was in the starting lineup on the bronze-medal-winning squad.
“I think the whole team was confident going into this game, [with a trip to nationals on stake]. We had to remind that we needed to be a little bit nervous, we can’t take any team for granted,” said Joly. “From now on, it’s do-or-die.”
A Program Legend Says Goodbye to Montpetit
Szczokin, who has written her name all over the Gee-Gees record books, checked out with just over two minutes remaining on Saturday. The fifth-year is the lone holdover from the pre-COVID days, and is likely to be named an All-Canadian in two weeks.
With both her parents in attendance, the game was Szczokin’s last at Montpetit. A beaming Szczokin was met with an embrace from Joly at the scorers table as she checked out one final time.
“I’m so proud of her,” said Joly. “There’s not even enough words to describe how humble, how hard of a worker, how much energy she brings to this team. It’s really her [team], she’s really well surrounded, but she was going to be the main element if we were going to make [nationals] or not.”
Russell says that punching a ticket for Szczokin and the other veterans has been the team’s goal the entire season.
“We do it for them,” said Russell. “Every day, we come in and work hard … they work so hard every single day, especially Natsuki, she’s our leader. She shows out every day and gives us opportunities.”
Both provincial championships come to Ottawa next weekend, with the women set to play at Carleton’s Ravens Nest at 6 p.m. and the men set to welcome Queen’s to Montpetit at 8 p.m. Stay tuned to the Fulcrum’s Instagram page for up-to-date information.
