HIGH ACHIEVERS: Local university teams, athletes win 9 medals at 3 U Sports championships

By Martin Cleary

University student-athletes from the National Capital Region had plenty to celebrate last weekend at U Sports national championships across the country in basketball, swimming and track and field.

The Carleton University women’s basketball team led the medal parade by successfully defending its national title in Edmonton and winning the Bronze Baby Trophy in back-to-back fashion for the first time in program history. The Ravens captured their first U Sports women’s basketball title in 2018.

After being ranked the No. 1 men’s U Sports basketball team for most of the 2023-24 season but needing to be awarded the at-large, wildcard berth into the national championship, the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees emerged as bronze medallists for the second consecutive year in Quebec City.

In the pool, the University of Ottawa’s Hugo Lemesle was one of the top individual performers by sweeping the three men’s breaststroke races at the U Sports swimming championships in Pointe-Claire, PQ. He was joined in the winners’ circle by local swimmers Olivier Risk and Liam Clawson-Honeyman, who represented the University of British Columbia.

Gatineau’s Audrey Leduc of Université Laval was the fastest in the women’s 60 metres at the U Sports track and field championships in Winnipeg and David Adeleye of the University of Toronto was a blink of an eye shy of the gold medal in the men’s 60-metre hurdles.

POCRNIC POWERS CARLETON TO THIRD NATIONAL BASKETBALL TITLE

For the 18th time in the past 21 U Sports national university basketball championship weekends, the Carleton University Ravens have stood alone undefeated and clutching the winner’s trophy.

But this time it was the women’s team which kept the Ravens on top of the mountain, after the men’s team was eliminated in the OUA quarterfinals and weren’t selected for the national tournament for the first time since 2002.

Last season, Carleton had a phenomenal and rare showing, winning the men’s and women’s U Sports basketball championships within minutes of each other in two separate locations. The men’s win made it 17 titles in the past 20 championships, while the women earned their second gold medal in five championships.

The Ravens, who had an all-guard starting-five roster, rallied from a four-point deficit after three quarters (58-54) to defeat the University of Saskatchewan Huskies 70-67 in the women’s national championship final.

“The game could’ve gone either way,” Ravens head coach Dani Sinclair said in a U Sports press release. “So much respect for the Huskies’ program. We played some tough teams in the OUA, but that was a tough group to play against.

“We base ourselves on our defence. We were a bit scattered early on. Gage (Grassick, an All-Canadian) was terrific for them. But the final three minutes we really settled in, focused on our rotations and needed to play lockdown defence.”

Grassick led the Huskies’ charge with a game-high 30 points, six rebounds, five assists, three steals and one block, but Carleton’s key to victory was limiting Saskatchewan to only nine points in the fourth quarter.

Pocrnic, a second-team U Sports All-Canadian, was instrumental in spearheading the Ravens to the title, scoring 18 points in the final and adding two assists and two steals. She counted five points to give Carleton a three-point advantage with two minutes remaining and 30 seconds later connected on a spinning turnaround jumper for a 68-63 lead.

For the second consecutive year, Pocrnic was named the tournament’s MVP.

Tatyana Burke restored the Ravens’ five-point lead with a putback layup with 40 seconds on the clock. Burke, an OUA second-team all-star, was named the Ravens’ player of the game, after scoring 14 points and grabbing eight rebounds.

Carleton’s other three starters also played significant roles in the team’s third national crown in the past six championships. Kyana-Jade Poulin had a complete game with nine points, six rebounds, four assists and four steals and was named to the tournament all-star team.

Jacqueline Urban posted a team-high 13 rebounds along with six points, while Dorcas Buisa notched 11 points and one rebound. Teresa Donato came off the bench and contributed 10 points, three rebounds and two assists in 17 minutes.

The Ravens reached the final with a commanding pair of wins – 75-58 over the University College of the Fraser Valley in the quarterfinals and 74-40 over Queen’s University in the semifinals.

Pocrnic was the point leader for Carleton with 25 against Fraser Valley and 22 against Queen’s.

Ottawa’s Julia Chadwick was the key player for Queen’s, which lost the bronze-medal game 76-62 to Laval. Chadwick combined for 57 points and 45 rebounds in her three games.

STRONG SECOND HALF LIFTS GEE-GEES TO REPEAT BRONZE MEDAL

For the second year in a row at the U Sports men’s basketball championship, the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees collected the bronze medal in Quebec City.

After their opening quarterfinal, when the sixth-seeded Gee-Gees turned back No. 3 Université de Montréal Carabins 78-71, it looked like the Gee-Gees could challenge for their first national men’s basketball title. But Queen’s University Gaels were too difficult an assignment in an 84-77 semifinal loss.

But the Gee-Gees rebounded in the bronze-medal match as they scored 25 points in each of the third and fourth quarters and defeated Dalhousie University Tigers 91-83. Dalhousie led 44-41 at halftime.

Justin Ndjock-Tadjore paced the Gee-Gees with 26 points, nine rebounds and two assists, while Kevin Otoo had 16 points, seven rebounds and two assists.

Brock Newton, an OUA first-team all-star and a second-team U Sports All-Canadian, continued his impressive scoring with 15 points, seven rebounds and two assists. Dragan Stajic, an OUA third-team all-star, registered a double-double with 14 points, 10 assists, seven rebounds and three steals.

Newton and Stajic were team leaders in Ottawa’s first two games. In the quarterfinals and semifinals, Newton had 23 and 19 points respectively, while Stajic contributed a pair of 15-point efforts.

BREASTSTROKE SPECIALIST HUGO LEMESLE WINS 3 GOLD MEDALS

The University of Ottawa Gee-Gees finished an impressive fifth in the men’s standings during the U Sports swimming championships at the Pointe Claire Aquatic Centre.

Not bad for a team that considered itself a group of nomads for more than the first half of the 2023-24 season. The Gee-Gees were unable to use their home pool at Montpetit Hall until Jan. 12th and were forced to find training time at seven different City of Ottawa pools.

The uOttawa pool had its filtration system updated and the project took five months longer than expected.

Hugo Lemesle, a third-year finance student who was born in Nice, France, was unstoppable in the breaststroke races as he posted first-place times over 50, 100 and 200 metres for his first three national university titles.

He completed the 50 metres in 28.24 seconds for a 0.08-second margin of victory over Tristan Bennett of Lethbridge. In the 100 metres, Lemesle eked out a similar win, edging the University of Toronto’s Gabe Mastromatteo to the wall by one-tenth of a second in 1:02.82.

The 200-metre breaststroke was his most comfortable win as his time of 2:14.80 was 3.97 seconds ahead of runner-up Jacob Gallant of Toronto. His long-course time in the 200-metre final earned him 815 points, which tied him for third place for best performance by points at the championships.

“I’ve matured a lot,” Lemesle said in a University of Ottawa press release, following his 200-metre triumph. “Since last year, I’ve learned how to win. I’ve learned how to deal with the emotions. I’m more calm and chill.”

On the opening day of the three-day championships, Lemesle captured the 100-metre race.

“It feels really good to get my first ever gold at U Sports. It was a good race. It was mentally hard, but I am happy with the way it ended,” he explained. “I didn’t make the same mistakes I made my previous years.”

Lemesle won silver and bronze medals in the 50- and 200-metre races respectively last year, and a 50-metre bronze in 2022.

Gee-Gees head coach Dave Heinbuch praised Lemesle for his hard work in the gym, which improved his overall strength and led to his three gold medals.

“Hugo’s turned into a real top-level swimmer. His training has improved and his attitude in how he races has come a long way,” he said.

“He was incredible. He’s a really good racer. He feels he has matured and can handle the pressure in the races. His times are very close to world class.”

Heinbuch was planning to retire before the 2023-24 season, but decided to stay on one more year because of the disruptive training schedule with the closed pool. He hopes to ease into retirement after a strong and smooth 2024-25 season.

Ottawa-based Olivier Risk of the University of British Columbia won the men’s 1,500-metre freestyle in 15:42.62, which left him 3.22 seconds ahead of teammate Liam Clawson-Honeyman of Gatineau, who stopped in 15:45.84.

Clawson-Honeyman made his mark in the men’s 400-metre freestyle by winning in 3:58.16 for a narrow 0.27-second decision over Nathan Versluys of Calgary.

“I was just awesome. I can’t believe it. I had so many expectations, so to see myself in first, that was really great,” Clawson-Honeyman told Earl Zukerman of the host McGill University.

As national champions, Lemesle, Risk and Clawson-Honeyman were named U Sports first-team All-Canadians.

University of Toronto won both the men’s and women’s team point titles. Ottawa was 16th among the women, while Carleton held that same position in the men’s standings.

LAVAL SPRINTER AUDREY LEDUC STRIKES GOLD TWICE

The day before the opening of the U Sports track and field championships in Winnipeg, Laval’s Audrey Leduc of Gatineau was named the national outstanding women’s performer.

The next day she showed why she was worthy of that high honour.

Leduc ran the fastest time of her university career to win the women’s 60-metre dash and the gold medal in 7.26 seconds.

University of Toronto’s David Adeleye of Ottawa finished as the men’s 60-metre hurdles (42 inches high) silver medallist in 7.83 seconds as he was edged by the University of Guelph’s Craig Thorne in 7.81 seconds.