Dominant Wesmen face rebuilding season

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This article was published 22/09/2023 (1049 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

No local U Sports program has had more recent success than the Winnipeg Wesmen’s women’s basketball team.

They reached the national championship game in 2021-22, and followed that up by going 16-5 last season before falling to the Calgary Dinos in the quarterfinals of the Canada West playoffs.

But with star guards Kyanna Giles, Raizel Guinto, and Robyn Boulanger all moving on, this year’s group — which features nine first or second-year players — will likely take a step backwards to focus on developing their talent.

The Wesmen are hosting the Dinos this weekend at the Duckworth Centre for a pair of exhibition games. Calgary won Game 1 Friday afternoon 72-37.

“Don’t count us out. We are young and that can be looked at as a disadvantage by a lot of people, but this is a really exciting group and it’s a really hardworking and motivated group. I think we’re going to surprise some people this year,” said second-year Wesmen head coach Alyssa Cox.

Shooting guard Anna Kernaghan is one of just three seniors on the team. She averaged 12.0 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 2.3 assists per game while shooting a career-high 43.9 per cent from three last year. She’s been playing 30-plus minutes a night since she was a freshman, but her role will be bigger than ever now.

“At least I have two other people ( Tamiya Ness and Sadie McMillan-Stowards) the same age as me, so it’s good to have that and not be the only senior citizen on the team, but yeah, it’s a very young squad this year,” said Kernaghan.

“It’s definitely very different than the past years I’ve played. I know for me, I feel like I have more responsibility to be a good leader and I need to lead by example and all that. But just because we’re young I don’t think we should have any lower expectations for ourselves. We’re still a very talented group.”

Tana Layton, a first-year guard from Airdrie, Alta., has quickly made a strong impression on Cox and her staff. There’s also a pair of rookie forwards out of Winnipeg that are expected to get minutes right away in Jazmin Birch (College Bealiveau) and Jennifer Kallon (River East Collegiate). Joining Birch and Kallon in this year’s Manitoba recruiting class is guard Alyssa Doneza out of Sisler High School.

“Tana Layton is relentless. She competes hard all the time in practice, games, weightlifting, it doesn’t matter, she wants to be the best,” said Cox.

“We’ve also got a handful of Manitoba talent who are all really phenomenal kids… Especially Jen and Jaz, they really bring another level of athleticism to our group. They give us a lot of speed and a lot of tenacity offensively as well.”

After redshirting last season, guard Annika Goodbrandson has gotten called up to the main roster. Before playing a year at Canadian Mennonite University, she won the Lena Wenke Courage Award — which is awarded to an individual who has overcome a number of obstacles and challenges in their life while staying involved in basketball — when she was in Grade 12 at Lord Selkirk for not letting her hearing impairment stop her from playing at a high level.

Her family became aware that she was deaf when she was two years old. She has a cochlear implant which has restored some of her hearing.

Goodbrandson said it means a lot to her to now follow in Wenke’s footsteps and play at the U of W. Wenke, who hails from Germany, was a standout forward for the Wesmen from 2015-19. The award was created in her name in 2018 after she survived a vicious attack that led to her being on life support for 10 hours.

“It’s about challenging yourself and trying to get yourself to the next level and constantly pushing yourself in life. And I think that’s what really motivated me to try to pursue the U Sports level,” said Goodbrandson.

“I wanted something more. I wanted to make it to the next level up. So, I reached out to Alyssa, came to some of the summer scrimmages, and then I asked if I could redshirt because we had a phenomenal team last year. And I think we can definitely reach that point one day once we grow, learn to play with each other, and just mature as a team as well. With an opportunity to be on the roster this year, I’m really looking forward to repping the W.”

The Wesmen kick off the Canada West regular season on the Nov. 3-4 weekend in Kelowna against the UBC Okanagan Heat.

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31