A cancelled 2020-21 U SPORTS season will wind up being the final one for UBC's Gabrielle Laguerta. (Photo by Richard Lam property of UBC athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
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UBC’s Gabrielle Laguerta: Despite her battle scars and lost senior season, ‘Birds senior celebrates the silver lining of basketball’s shared experience

VANCOUVER —As Gabrielle Laguerta has gone about playing her role in the strangest year of our lives, UBC’s fifth-year senior guard has so often felt like an actor rehearsing her lines for a Broadway production she knows  will never see the light of opening night.“I’ll come off a good practice where I’ve tried out this […]

The Fraser Valley Cascades' dynamic duo of forward Deanna Tuchscherer (left) and point guard Maddy Gobeil are a pair of 19-year-old Cascades finding their solution to the cancelled Canada West campaign by signing pro contracts to play in Europe over the fall-winter season. (Photos by Dan Kinvig property of UFV athletics 2020. All rights reserved. Photo graphic by Gabriel Lynn)
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A SUNDAY READ: Banking their Euros! Postmarked ‘Abby, BC’, UFV’s teen duo of Tuchscherer & Gobeil find their bounce with overseas pro careers

ABBOTSFORD — It was a basketball migration along a flight path neither could have ever anticipated just a handful of months ago.Yet this past Thursday, as both U SPORTS and its conference affiliate, Canada West, announced the official cancellation of the remainder of the 2020-21 university sports season (including basketball) due to the ongoing virulence […]

Fraser Valley women's basketball players (left to right) Natalie Rathler, Maddy Gobeil and Lauryn Walker each provided inspirational moments this week as part of the Cascades' week-long virtual climb of Mt. Everest. (Photos by Dan Kinvig property of UFV Athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved. Photo graphic special for Varsity Letters courtesy of Gabriel Lynn)
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A Sunday Read: How UFV Cascades’ women’s basketball strengthened its bond on a virtual climb to the top of Mt. Everest!

ABBOTSFORD — Al Tuchscherer was watching the nightly news recently when a story came across the screen which immediately sparked his imagination.“They had a human interest story about this gentleman who I guess always wanted to climb Mt. Everest,” began the head coach of the Fraser Valley Cascades women’s basketball team. “And he decided to take […]

Fraser Valley's Deanna Tuchscherer has enjoyed a brilliant rookie debut in the Canada West. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of University of the Fraser Valley athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
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“…Hey, she just pulled a Dirk!” UFV’s fab frosh Tuchscherer making like a U Sports’ Nowitzki

(Due to technical difficulties encountered here at VarsityLetters.ca over the past two weeks, several stories, including this one, had not been posted here on our main site, which is now back to being fully operational as of Feb. 17, 2020. We thank you for your patience and your continued loyalty to B.C.’s most trusted source for […]

When UBC head coach Deb Huband cut down the nets back in 2004, she was bringing the Bronze baby back to Point Grey for the first time in 30 years. (Photo by Richard Lam property of UBC athletics 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

From Debbie to Deb: How UBC’s iconic women’s hoop coach Huband has found balance on her journey towards a signature milestone

VANCOUVER — If playing and coaching represent the two sides of the basketball brain, then a life well-lived in both is a life which has achieved a rare level of balance… in some cases as spherically-perfect as the ball itself.

Fraser Valley's Taylor Claggett is headed into her senior season with the Cascades relishing the experiences of her team's recent trip to India (left, with teammate Amanda Thompson). (Photos property UFV athletics 2019. All rights reserved)
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A Passage To India: The travels of UFV senior Taylor Claggett yield new perspectives as Cascades star preps for a torch-passing season

ABBOTSFORD — So many time-honoured adages centre around the fact that greatness remains elusive without first taking a willing step outside of your comfort zone.Taylor Claggett wants to lead her team to the top of the Canadian university basketball mountain this coming spring, so maybe it was fitting that she stepped outside of hers earlier […]

Trinity Western's quartet of fifth-year veterans (left to right) Tessa Needham, Sarah Buckingham, Tessa Ratzlaff and Jessie Brown look to keep their senior seasons alive when the Spartans face UNBC to open the 2019 Canada West playoffs Friday at the Langley Events Centre. (Photo by Scott Stewart property of Trinity Western athletics 2019. All Rights Reserved)
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With ‘Fighting For Friday’ their refrain, TWU Spartans put Canada West season on line in sudden-elimination clash with UNBC

LANGLEY — It started out as the worst of times, it finished as the best of times. And now, after closing out their Canada West regular schedule with a game that serves as the perfect microcosm of their maddeningly inconsistent campaign, have the Trinity Western Spartans women’s basketball team shown enough to suggest that the playoffs […]

If you had to peek especially hard on the court to notice Sarah Buckingham in past seasons, all of that has changed for the fourth-year TWU Spartans' guard this season. (Photo by Scott Stewart property of Trinity Western athletics 2018. All Rights Reserved)
South Kamloop's Maddy Gobeil has committed her university basketball future to the UFV Cascades. She'll be at LEC Dec. 13 for the start of TBI girls 2018. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2018. All Rights Reserved)
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Mighty Maddy makes her move! South Kamloops Titans’ senior B.C. MVP point guard chooses future with Fraser Valley Cascades

ABBOTSFORD — Some of our best memories are stored away just below the surface, needing just a figurative nudge from within to bring a smile to our faces.

G.W. Graham Grizzlies' star senior Deanna Tuchscherer has elected to stay home for her university career and announced that she will play for her father Al as a member of the Fraser Valley Cascades beginning in the fall of 2019. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of UFV Athletics)
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Deanna Tuchscherer: After searching far and wide, GWG’s star senior will play for dad Al and her hometown Fraser Valley Cascades

ABBOTSFORD — Deanna Tuchscherer has always trusted her basketball skills.But it took a summer spent away from home, in the company of some of the nation’s best young talent, for the rising 6-foot-1 senior guard/forward to realize that it was also okay to trust her inner basketball voice.What it kept telling her, and what she […]