Women's basketball Huskies hit road to face Rustlers

The road beckons to the Keyano Huskies women's basketball team this weekend as they venture south for a pair of games against the Lakeland College Rustlers.

"[It's] always a tough challenge in Lakeland," said head coach Dwayne Vigilance. "We always run into the fact that it's Lakeland and it's always exciting there.

"Lakeland is very tough at home so it's going to be a challenge for us."

The Huskies found their rhythm Saturday in Edmonton to earn a weekend split against The King's University Eagles. Now, they'll be trying to carry that momentum into Friday to secure their first weekend sweep of the season.

"We learned a lot over the past weekend," said Zera Panesa. "Just coming into this weekend coming up, we definitely need to work on our communication and just keying in on the different defensive styles that we're going to play."

Panesa was recognized Monday as the Huskies Athlete of the Week, a solid honour for the Winnipeg, Man. product.

"It was a great pleasure to be recognized," said Panesa. "It was a great end to the weekend, which we split the weekend with King's.

"We executed on game two so that was nice."

Moiyan Toure and Danielle MacLellan lead the way for the Huskies offensively at the moment while Panesa and Madison Zadro are within grasping distance of joining them in averaging double-digit points-per-game.

They'll need to pay equal attention to both ends of the court though as the Rustlers posted 83 and 75 points in their pair of opening weekend wins.

"They've got a few experienced guards and experienced posts, so they're definitely going to give us a hard time," continued Panesa. "We're preparing all this week to definitely do our best and hopefully come out with two wins."

For Vigilance, he echoed the need of being more assertive on both sides of the floor. That includes having the team's bench players step up and fill roles when called upon, a job Vigilance believed they were capable of doing.

"Veronica in her first year we're asking to do a big task in guarding some different positions," said Vigilance. "We're looking for some stuff off our bench like Jaylynn coming off the bench and playing some really good minutes in that post spot.

"It's a different situation for them, asking them to do a lot more than they have done, but I think they can do it."

The Huskies take to the road this weekend to face the Lakeland College Rustlers. The teams meet on Friday, November 19 at 8:00 p.m. followed by a Saturday matchup at 3:00 p.m.