SFU Red Leafs' guard Aram Dulai (right) with former teammate Sophie Klassen during the 2022-23 season. (Photo by Gordon Kalisch property of FastTrackSportsPhotography and SFU athletics 2024. All Rights Reserved)
SFU Red Leafs' guard Arman Dulai is the first women's basketball player in SFU's NCAA era to earn a spot in the team's starting line-up as a walk-on player. (Photo by Gordon Kalisch property of FastTrackSportsPhotography and SFU athletics 2024. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

SFU women’s basketball: Arman Dulai puts her stamp on Red Leafs’ red-letter day as first walk-on starter in team’s NCAA era!

BURNABY — When it comes to beating the odds during this current decade-plus NCAA era of Simon Fraser women’s basketball, Arman Dulai may well have everyone beat.When the 5-foot-9 junior guard from Surrey found out that she was going to be announced in the starting line-up for this past Saturday’s home game against Seattle Pacific, […]

Her combined two-point, three-point and free throw percentage numbers put Simon Fraser's Jessica Wisotzki in a rare category of shooters as the Red Leafs set to open GNAC play Saturday against Western Washington at the West Gym. (Photo by Paul Yates property of Simon Fraser athletics 2022. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball University Women's Basketball

She’s 196 per cent Wiz! It all adds up for Simon Fraser’s Jessica Wisotzki who is “…shooting the three better than anyone we have ever had” Red Leafs set for GNAC opener against WWU Vikings!

BURNABY MOUNTAIN — Steve Nash, Reggie Miller, Mark Price, Steve Kerr… and Jessica Wisotzki.Huh?The numbers never lie, and on a Thursday morning ahead of his team’s Great Northwest Athletic Conference season-opener this Saturday at home to the powerhouse Western Washington Vikings, Simon Fraser Red Leafs’ veteran head coach Bruce Langford is asked the impossible: Can […]

Muscling her way to the basket, Simon Fraser's Sophie Klassen, a Sardis Secondary grad, has enjoyed a confidence-building junior season atop Burnaby Mountain. (Photo by Paul Yates property of SFU athletics 2022. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

The energy of Sophie Klassen: ACL surgery left Simon Fraser forward wondering if she had “…lost what makes me, me,” yet her crash-and-bang DNA impossible to miss!

BURNABY — Ask Sophie Klassen what was worse than the COVID-cancelled 2020-21 university basketball season, and she doesn’t hesitate to answer.“I tore my ACL last season, in September (of 2020), just a couple of weeks into practices,” Simon Fraser’s energetic 6-foot redshirt junior forward begins. “I got surgery in November, and I wasn’t completely sure […]

Simon Fraser rookie forward Gemma Cutler has held her own on the offensive glass with the elite of the GNAC this season. Here, she battles with Central Washington's fifth-year senior standout Kassidy Malcolm. (Photo by Paul Yates property of SFU athletics 2022. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

Simon Fraser forward Gemma Cutler does it by the book, but the 6-foot-2 rookie from North Vancouver also writing her own chapters atop Burnaby Mountain!

BURNABY — When it comes to being a voracious student of the sport of basketball, you could say that Gemma Cutler wrote the book.Or perhaps, in the case of Simon Fraser’s ultra-inquisitive rookie forward, it’s more accurate to say she digested it in its entirety.That’s the idea you get when you ask SFU head coach […]

The Langley Christian Lightning seem ready to make a third run at the thus-far elusive B.C. senior girls Double A basketball championship title this March at the Langley Events Centre. It's a quest being led by the team's talented trio of seniors (left to right) Taelor Coxford, Sydney Bradshaw and Lainey Shelvey. (Photo graphic by Gabriel Lynn, photos by Howard Tsumura property of Varsity Letters 2022. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball

The ‘Strikes Thrice’ magic of the Langley Christian Lightning! In a tier-free girls high school basketball world, might Double-A powers be BC’s No. 1 overall team?

LANGLEY — Imagine a B.C. girls high school basketball world without any tiers of classification.Instead, replace it with a soup pot of sorts in which every team in the province is thrown together to form a chowder-like broth.Bring to a boil.Cover.Simmer.Let the cream rise to the top.And when you lift that cover, who might you […]

Simon Fraser's Jessica Wisotzki has undergone a renaissance in her offensive game at the university level. (Photo courtesy Simon Fraser athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Girls Basketball University Women's Basketball

Jessica Wisotzki: How the simple game of one-on-one helped show Simon Fraser’s super sophomore the way to unlock her true scoring talents!

BURNABY MOUNTAIN — Sometimes simple works best. Just ask Jessica Wisotzki.As the Simon Fraser women’s basketball teams continues preparation this week for its Great Northwest Athletic Conference opener Saturday (7 p.m.) in Bellingham against its arch rivals, the Western Washington Vikings, perhaps you have noticed a defined uptick in the sophomore guard-forward’s scoring numbers throughout […]

Simon Fraser's Jessica Jones has endured to enter her sixth season atop Burnaby Mountain. On Tuesday, SFU's senior guard was voted the GNAC's Preseason Player of the Year by the conference's coaches. (Photo property of SFU athletics 2021. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

The rise of SFU’s Basketball Jones: Jessica Jones doubted her game early, but with perseverance Simon Fraser’s senior guard named 2021-22 GNAC Preseason Player of the Year!

BURNABY — Tuesday was a day for Jessica Jones to understand, with a veteran’s perspective, the meaning of perseverance in the face of adversity.After discovering that she had been named the GNAC’s women’s basketball 2021-22 Preseason Player of the Year, Simon Fraser’s energetic, shot-making senior guard put it all into words as best she could.“It’s […]

Simon Fraser's Tayler Drynan has never missed a game over the course of her entire four-year career with the Clan. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

Tayler Drynan: Simon Fraser’s senior point guard never missed a moment along the road to her Clan home finale

(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 […]

Simon Fraser's junior guard Jessica Jones (left) hits the deck to battle for a loose ball in this past Saturday's home loss to Alaska Anchorage at the West Gym. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

With a new balance in her basketball core, gritty Simon Fraser Clan guard Jessica Jones elevates her game atop Burnaby Mountain

BURNABY — Jessica Jones always believed she had what it took to become the kind of player and leader positioned at the very core of the Simon Fraser women’s basketball team.

Playing it tough in the paint was the key Thursday for the Simon Fraser Clan, and sophomore Sophie Klassen was one of the leading lights in that regard as her team topped visiting Seattle Pacific at the West Gym. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Women's Basketball

Even without its magical three-ball, Simon Fraser women sit at 4-1! Clan turn rebound-hungry in impressive win over Seattle Pacific Falcons

BURNABY — The only thing certain about 2019-20 Simon Fraser Clan women’s basketball team at the quarter-pole of their league schedule is that they sit third in the 11-team Great Northwest Athletic Conference standings with a 4-1 record.That’s first and foremost, and in the minds of Clan fans, more than soothing enough despite the fact […]