After a trip to the University of British Columbia over the weekend, the men’s and women’s Huskies basketball teams have officially started regular-season play. Each team lost their first game but gathered their strength for a second outing, where both were victorious over the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds.

All four games had score differences of ten points or less — making for a fairly tense weekend for both the University of Saskatchewan and UBC teams. On the women’s side of things, Sabine Dukate and Libby Epoch stood out in scoring — with Dukate having the highest scoring of her teammates in the first game and Epoch making this achievement in the second.

U of S Huskies guard Lawrence Moore dribbles down the court during a match against the UBC Thunderbirds.

Dukate shared her thoughts on the exhibition games that the team has played this year, as well as the season ahead.

“It’s still early to say. [The] season is so long, and everything might happen,” Dukate said. “We played [a] good team in exhibition and learned lessons from these games. The team overall is good. We gained two good players — Ashley De Sousa Martins and Carly Ahlstrom — that will be big help in this season.”

De Sousa Martins, first-year arts and science student and Huskie, had an excellent weekend as she opened up her U Sports career and spoke to her goals this season.

“One of my goals this season is to be a defensive threat, being up on the ball and defending both perimeter and post players,” De Sousa Martins said. “On offence, I want to be aggressive when attacking the rim and going after the offensive boards.”

Dukate discusses the two games of the weekend and how they made up for the earlier loss with a win on Oct. 27.

“[The] start of the season is always challenging and [does] not always start on great note. Sometimes, things do not go our way, and then we need to adjust and make the changes,” Dukate said. “We tried to come back after the halftime Friday, but we ran out of time for that. We made changes for the Saturday game, and a lot of other players stepped up and showed what they are capable of.”

The men’s team saw some standout players as well. Lawrence Moore held the position of top scorer for the Huskies in the first game with 33 points to his name, while Chan De Ciman brought in the most points — at 33 points also — during the second game.

Joseph Barker, a fifth-year Huskie and kinesiology student, captured 14 rebounds in the team’s Oct. 27 victory game. Barker explains how he’s feeling going into his final season.

“I’m very excited for this season. We have a really good group of guys, and I think we can make some noise in the conference this year,” Barker said.

As a fifth-year, this will be Barker’s final year of eligibility. Barker talks about the season ahead and his time with the Huskies as a whole.

“I’m very excited for this season. We have a really solid group of guys, and everyone is clicking really good,” Barker said. “My last five years have gone by extremely fast, but I loved every minute of it. It’s a grind at times, but I like it… I’m excited for this season — [I] am excited for the season to get on the way.”

The Huskies men’s and women’s basketball teams will be making their home-game debuts for the season on Nov. 2 and 3, when they take on the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades.

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Jack Thompson / Sports & Health Editor

Photo: Elizabeth Wang, The Ubyssey / Supplied