Huskies win home opener over UPEI

(Halifax, NS)—The Saint Mary's Huskies opened up their 2017-18 Atlantic University Sport women's basketball season on Friday night with a 60-52 victory over the visiting UPEI Panthers.

Kennisha-Shanice Luberisse (Montreal, QC) recorded a double-double in SMU's win, scoring 18 points and grabbing 11 rebounds while teammate Katrina Murrell (Markham, ON) had 13 points and eight rebounds.

Saint Mary's doubled-up UPEI 16-8 after 10 minutes and took a 32-18 lead into the locker room at half. Both teams scored the exact same points in the second-half, with UPEI outscoring SMU 17-14 in each quarter.

The Huskies led 46-35 after thirty minutes and 60-52 after the final whistle. SMU improves to 1-0 with the win while UPEI falls to 0-1 on the year.

Kiera Rigby (Charlottetown, PE) paced the Panthers' offence with 17 points while Jenna Mae Ellsworth (Charlottetown, PE) added 10 in the loss.

Saint Mary's outscored UPEI 30-18 in the paint and points off turnovers were 14 for SMU and 11 for the Panthers. Saint Mary's had five more bench points (11-6) and 10 more points off second chance points (17-7).

UPEI shot 34% from the floor (16-47) and 37.5% from three-point land (6-16) while SMU went 33.8% from the floor (23-68) and 28.6% from three-point land (4-14).

Both teams return to action Saturday November 4th versus each other at the Homburg Centre with tip-off set for 6 pm.

Dominic Nolasco, SMU Communication

Photo Nick Pearce