By Howard Tsumura
BURNABY — The last time the women’s basketball team at the top of Burnaby Mountain went through this kind of change, they were first celebrating a national championship, then preparing to make the move from what is now known as U SPORTS to the ranks of the NCAA.
All of that took place in the spring-summer-fall of 2010.
And although the new script is not unfolding with the same kind of tectonic drama which accompanied a return to U.S.-based athletic affiliations 15 years ago, it is substantive change nonetheless, and that’s because when the Simon Fraser Red Leafs women’s squad takes to the floor Friday (5:45 p.m.) to face Wisconsin-Parkside to open its three-day run as host of the CCA Div. 2 Canadian Tip-Off Classic at the Langley Events Centre, not all of its faces will have changed, but its overall mindset and focus couldn’t be any more different or singular.
Team toughness.
Rebounding.
Charges taken.
Points off turnovers.
With 75 per cent of its scoring, 85 per cent of its total player starts and 92 per cent of its made three-pointers all now gone from a season ago, and with a talented but-as-of-yet unproven incoming class set to prove its mettle as its joins a half-dozen holdovers now truly thrust into first-time leading roles, two eternal questions arise.
1 Can a distinctly blue-collar team win games on a consistent basis by stuffing the stat sheet with hustle plays?
We’ll see.
2 How fun is it going to be to watch this team try to do just that?
So, so fun.
Bruce Langford, the veteran bench boss beginning his 25th season at the helm of Red Leafs women’s hoops, has been around too long to try and paint the situation any different than it actually is.
“I think that I don’t know where our shooting is coming from,” Langford said following practice Monday, his admission not a sign of defeat but of challenge to both his players and his staff’s collective will and resourcefulness. “We’re going into a season as a very unknown shooting team.
“But I think we’re more athletic than we’ve been in the last two years, and I think we’re taller than we’ve been in the last two years. I think we’re going to rebound better than we ever have and I think we have that back-to-the-hoop post player (6-foot-3 senior transfer Gwen Aasland) that we haven’t had in many years.”
Clearly you can’t pick up the phone and order shooting like hotel room service.
Yet the traits of athleticism, size and rebounding aren’t exactly chopped liver, either.
And in the case of these 2025-26 Red Leafs, their veteran coach is basically saying he’s willing to wait and see how his offence comes together, but in the meantime, there is not a second to waste when it comes to bringing all the cornerstone elements of toughness to the floor, especially on the defensive end, and especially in the paint.
FROM 2010 TO 2025: HOW CHANGE SHAPES THE FUTURE
As we’re talking about seasons featuring drastic change, how about taking a trip in the Way Back machine to that aforementioned 2009-10 season, Simon Fraser’s last as a member of U SPORTS.
That season, with one of the most loaded rosters in Canadian U Sports women’s basketball history, the Red Leafs went 32-1 overall, 17-1 in conference play and 16-0 at home as Langford guided SFU to its fifth national title in nine years, a finish so dominant that no team at the Final 8 got within 14 points of them.
Yet if you remember, the season was played out against the backdrop of the school’s pending defection from U SPORTS to the NCAA.
And when that became official, the roster shrank to just four returning players — Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe, Kristina Collins, Carla Wyman and Anna Carolsfeld — while nine others either exhausted their eligibility or reasonably departed because they would gain an extra year of eligibility at a U SPORTS program.
And the players that departed?
Amongst the ranks of those either in their third, fourth or fifth years: Katie Miyazaki (coming off of her first of two straight national Defensive Player of the Year awards), Carly Graham, Robyn Buna (national Final 8 MVP), Matteke Hutzler, Kate Hole, Lisa Tindle and Brea McLaughlin.
And while the losses were massive, the confluence of Collins, Wyman and future WNBA player and former SFU assistant coach Raincock-Ekunwe as rising main rotation holdovers combined with a freshman class which included Rebecca Langmead, Kia Van Laare, Chelsea Riest, transfer Amonda Francis and current SFU assistant coach Marie-Line Petit was wildly entertaining in the program’s debut NCAA season.
Yes, they posted a 7-17 overall mark, a 4-14 GNAC record as a provisional member, as well as a 2-8 home court record… but also delivered on the promise of better seasons to come, including two NCAA national Sweet 16 championship appearances.
A secret hoops wish from your authour: I’d love to be transported to a parallel universe where I’d able to have my usual courtside seat, and from that location to broadcast the 2009-10 team over a full season in any NCAA division or conference of the basketball gods’ choosing!
OK, back to reality.
HOW THE PIECES WILL FIT FOR SFU IN 2025-26
Last season, 5-foot-9 Quebec-native Sophie Bergeron’s impressionable freshman debut with the Red Leafs was built around her love of physicality and all-out hustle.
This season, she will team with a player cut from the same cloth in the 6-foot-3 senior transfer Gwen Aasland from Div. 2 Cal State East Bay.
Both take the shortest route to the ball without fail.
Both bring a level of battle that will be hard to miss.
And both led their teams last season in fouls incurred, Bergeron with 70 in 27 games and Aasland with 86 fouls in 23 games.
“She’s deceptively quick,” says Langford when asked for a scouting report based on Aasland’s performance in training camp. “She jumps well, she has vacuum-cleaner hands and she’s competitive as hell.”
And without even asking for a player comp, Langford dishes the names of two.
“She a combination of Sophie Swant and Jessica Kaczowka, and she’s already’s Sophie’s favourite player,” the head coach says of two of the most relentless inside forces in 21st century SFU women’s basketball.
Bergeron, adept at playing both guard and forward, seems ready to come into her own as a sophomore.
If last season was all about just how far above the competition she was when it came to her pure athleticism and instinctual, relentless play, then this season has to be about her refining the technical aspects of her fundamentals to the point where she becomes a consistent finisher in ways that extend back to the game’s peach-basket origins,
If that happens, look out.
The rest of the front court?
Rilyn Quirke, the 6-foot-1 junior out of Gresham, Ore., is a returnee who should feel a lot more comfortable at the power forward spot this season, and Sahnya Gill, the 6-foot-1 senior out of Brookswood had begun to carry a new level of confidence in her time on the floor over the second half of last season.
There are also three newcomers, all freshmen, whose collective early-season reveal will provide powerful insights into just how versatile the team’s forward group is actually going to be.
Oceanne Paradis, a 6-foot-3 forward from Quebec City has displayed early her great length and movement skills. Now it’s going to be her willingness to jump head first into the physical rigours of GNAC play which will determine her overall effectiveness.
Alyssa Buwalda, a 6-foot-1 forward from Calgary Christian has also shown signs of being able to provide minutes early in her SFU career and it will be interesting see how the rotation behind Aasland shapes up over this weekend.
Also on the scene is Tonya Karpow, a 5-foot-9 native of Anchorage who has brought a physical presence in the paint and the makings of an effective inside shooting game.
The guard group should have an effective one-two punch as it regroups following the explosive career of Sophia Wistozki, whose 24.7 ppg, so many of which came in clutch situations, will be tough to replace. Truthfully, however, the more sting the entire guard group takes to questions surrounding its overall ability to consistently shoot the basketball, the better.
Yet there is much to like about a potential pairing in the starting back court of point guard Zoe Sharpe and off-guard Rachel Loukes.
Sharpe, a 5-foot-7 point guard, spent last season at the D2 level in Tennessee at Tusculum University where she started 12 of her team’s 23 conference games as a freshman.
A Glasgow, Scotland native, Sharpe is an experienced international with consistent age group representation within both Scotland’s and Great Britain’s national team programs.
Loukes, the 5-foot-10 junior out of College Heights in Prince George has flashed since her freshman season, especially on the defensive end, and now seems poised to become the team’s top scorer.
Two 5-foot-8 redshirt sophomore guards also bring main-rotation readiness to the fore.
Bree Neufeld from MEI in Abbotsford, along with Hayley de Walle from Western Canada High in Calgary have been students of the game in preparing for their opportunities.
And as one of only three seniors on the team, New Westminster’s 5-foot-7 Anja Tjernagel brings even more depth and experience to what is shaping up as a six-player backcourt group.
Surrey-Fleetwood Park freshman guard Anushka Kanagasabay, as well as Burnaby Central product Sophia Morton, a 5-foot-11 sophomore forward, have both battled injuries and appear unavailable to start the season with the Red Leafs.
Langford knows what needs to begin revealing itself this weekend as dependable traits of his team.
“The key, key, key is… can we have an impact on the boards?” the coach begins.
“We need to take care of our defensive boards, but we have to get some offensive boards that we haven’t gotten before. That would be No. 1.
“Another is we haven’t been able to stop people in the paint for years. Can we play D in the paint?
“If we can get any shooting out of us… I think our points are going to come off of turnovers, steals, put-backs, and what can we generate offensively will be interesting to see.”
Can you describe a blue-collar basketball team any better?
“I think that they get that we need to get after it,” added Langford. “We need to work hard and compete. And I think they like each other. I think they’re ready to play.”
Simon Fraser follows its Friday game with a 5:45 p.m. tip Saturday against Colorado Mesa, then wraps up play Sunday (4:15 p.m.) against North Dakota’s Minot State.
Eight other non-conference games, as well as a GNAC-opening road pair in early December await before the Red Leafs play their conference home opener on New Year’s Day in the West Gym against the visiting St. Martin’s Saints.
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