The Windsor Lancers Women's and Men's Basketball teams tip-off the 2009-10 OUA regular season this weekend as they host the York Lions and Laurentian Voyageurs at the St. Denis Centre.
All four games this weekend will be webcast live on the internet via ssncanada.ca. To watch the webcasts, click here.
The Lancer Women, coming off their first ever OUA Provincial Championship last year, start the season ranked #3 in Canada.
The Lancer Men, who have been ranked in the top ten in Canada for the better part of three straight years, start their campaign ranked #8 in the nation.
Coach Vallee's squad has established themselves as one of the top programs in the country, as evidenced by their 21-1 record last season and first ever berth at CIS Nationals.
The Lancers will have a new-look this year as they prepare for Friday's regular season opener at the St. Denis Centre against the York Lions.
“Offensively, we are completely different,” said Chantal Vallée, last year's OUA Coach of the Year. “There's not one thing we do the same as before.”
Following the graduation of some key veterans, Vallée has re-stocked with some impressive height, including talented six-foot-three post Jessica Clemencon and six-foot-six Jessica Gordon.
“We're probably the tallest team in Canada right now,” Vallée said. “We play a two-post offence all the time.”
Clemencon, a member of the French junior national team, joins six-foot-five Iva Peklova in the starting lineup along with fifth-year point guard Shavaun Reaney, third-year guard Emily Abbott and second-year forward Bojana Kovacevic.
The Lancers played a tough pre-season schedule and finished with a 3-3 record, including a three-point loss to the defending CIS national champs from Simon Fraser (81-78).
Other new faces include Catholic Central all-star standout Miah Langlois, former L'Essor stalwart Tanya Leclerc who transferred from Ryerson, and St. Anne grad Georgia Billing, who returned home after one season in the United States.
The Lancer will also have plenty of new faces this season, as Head Coach Chris Oliver has brought in another top recruiting class in the nation.
Some key additions to the Lancers include six-foot-one point guard Josh Collins, six-foot-eight forward Lien Phillip, six-foot-six swingman Justin Wiltshire and six-foot-one guard Enrico Diloreto.
All four were rated as top 10 nationally at their positions.
Following the graduation of OUA Player of the Year and CIS All-Canadian Greg Surmacz, Windsor will be looking to fill some big shoes up front in the post.
Expected to lead this group forward are a trio of veterans in Nigel Johnson-Tyghter, Andre Smyth and Isaac Kuon. All three have been strong in the pre-season and will be expected to log big minutes this year.
Other returning players include guards Monty Hardware, Matt Handsor, John Woldu and Corey Boswell.
The Lancers finished second in the OUA West Division at 15-7 a year ago before losing in the division final to Western, and then to Ottawa in the OUA bronze-medal game.
Windsor went 3-2 in pre-season action, defeating Simon Fraser and Fraser Valley University as part of their Canada West tour and Madonna University last weekend as part of the Spring Arbor Tournament.
"We feel like everything is progressing," said Oliver of a team that finished the season ranked exactly where they started this year, at No. 8 in the country.
"We're hoping to play 10 guys. We want to play fast and we're hoping to play up and down. We have that ability this year because we're not trying to play one guy 38 minutes.”
The Lancer Women tip-off on Friday night at 6pm against the York Lions at the St. Denis Centre, followed by the Lancer Men at 8pm.
Both teams will then take on the Laurentian Voyageurs on Saturday night at 6pm and 8pm.
