Huskies women’s basketball team repeats as national champions

The University of Saskatchewan Huskies women’s basketball team has repeated as national champions.

The team beat the University of New Brunswick Reds 77-68 in the U Sports final in Quebec City on Sunday.

The win came after the University of Calgary Dinos snapped the Huskies’ 51-game winning streak in the Canada West conference semifinals last month. Saskatchewan ended up taking the wild-card route to the U Sports nationals.

“I don’t think you’ll ever find a team this special, especially going back-to-back,” team captain Gage Grassick said.

The team arrived back in Saskatoon on Monday. They spoke to journalists at the airport, with their medals around their necks and holding the championship banner.

Grassick, who has won two consecutive Canada West female athlete of the year awards, is one of the highest-scoring players in the history of the program.

“I don’t think you’ll ever find a team this special, especially going back-to-back,” she said. 

Grassick said she will always remember her time with the team and hopes to become a coach someday.

“It’s shaped who I am today. It’s shaped what I want to do in the community. It shaped what I want to do in the future and how I want to uphold myself,” she said.

Four championships since 2016

“We knew we had the talent to get the job done. It was just a matter of being able to execute on the day that you needed to, ” Huskies head coach Lisa Thomaidis said.

Thomaidis has led the team to four national titles, after previous wins in 2016, 2020 and 2025.

Despite being up by 12 at the half, Thomaidis was not satisfied.

“We missed a number of free throws, a few layups around the rim, and then we gave up the three-point play at the end of the second to kind of change momentum,” she said.

Thomaidis credited her team’s veteran leadership and defensive play to turn the game in the Huskies favour.

Veteran players come up big

Fifth-year forward Ella Murphy Wiebe was named the tournament’s MVP. Like Grassick, this was her final season.

“It’s amazing — so much relief — to end my Husky career this way,” Murphy Wiebe said.

“The relationships that we’ve built are the things that are going to last forever, and the memories that we’ve made, and the impact that we’ve made, is what’s going to last,”  she said.

Fourth-year shooting guard Logan Reider hit a huge three-pointer to give the Huskies a six-point lead with three minutes remaining in the game.

“I kind of just trusted that if I got my form right, I would hope it went in, and thank God it did,”  Reider said.

Reider put up 19 points and was named the Huskies player of the game. She said she is grateful for the time she spent with her teammates.

“I’ve played the last four years with those girls, and it was kind of just a shock of, ‘Wow, we really did it again,” Reider said.