Canadians are shining in March's 'other' NCAA championships too
Athletes making their mark beyond the basketball court
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Canadians are shining in a mad March for U.S. college sports
While many of us obsess over our brackets for the men's basketball tournament, a bunch of other NCAA championships are happening this month too. And Canadians are making an impact in many of them. Such as:
Swimming: Maggie Mac Neil. The reigning 100-metre butterfly world champion bolstered her status as one of Canada's top Olympic contenders by winning two gold medals and a silver at the NCAA women's swimming championships. Mac Neil, 21, broke the NCAA record time in her 100-yard butterfly victory on Friday, and she added another gold in the 100-yard freestyle on Saturday. She took silver in Thursday's 50-yard freestyle. Mac Neil was one of six swimmers named early to Canada's Olympic team, but she's still expected to compete at the Canadian trials May 24-28 in Toronto.
Hockey: Daryl Watts and Brette Pettet. The senior forwards both played a big role in Wisconsin's second consecutive NCAA women's hockey title. Pettet is the Badgers' captain, and Watts scored the overtime winner in the final vs. Northeastern on Saturday night. The men's tournament starts Friday and culminates with the Frozen Four April 8-10.
Women's basketball: Aaliyah Edwards and Laeticia Amihere. Both had strong first-round games for No. 1-seeded teams in the women's tournament. Edwards scored 17 points and grabbed 12 rebounds in UConn's 102-59 rout of High Point, while Amihere had 11 points and eight rebounds in South Carolina's 79-53 drubbing of Mercer. Edwards' and Amihere's teams will face tougher tests in the second round vs. No. 8 seeds Syracuse and Oregon State, respectively. Those games are on Tuesday. (Correction from Friday's women's March Madness preview: I wrote that UConn is the top-ranked team in the tournament, which is true in the sense that they finished the season No. 1 in the Associated Press poll. But Stanford received the No. 1 overall seed for the tournament.)
Men's basketball: One of the reasons this tournament tends to overshadow everything else is its unpredictability. And this year's has been especially wild. For the first time ever, four teams seeded 13 or worse made it to the round of 32. No. 15 seed Oral Roberts is into the Sweet Sixteen, while 13 seed Ohio and 14 seed Abilene Christian can still join them with wins today.
Another surprise Sweet Sixteen team is 11 seed Syracuse, which got 12 points from Canadian Quincy Guerrier in yesterday's upset of 3 seed West Virginia. The Orange will try to topple 2 seed Houston in the next round. The other Sweet Sixteen matchup in that quarter of the bracket is an all-Cinderella pairing with a Canadian on each roster. Aher Uguak plays for 8 seed Loyola Chicago (Sister Jean's team!), which shocked 1 seed Illinois yesterday. The Ramblers now face 12 seed Oregon State, which beat 4 seed Oklahoma State last night with the help of 15 points and five rebounds off the bench from Canada's Maurice Calloo.
Another upset happened this afternoon, and two Canadians had a big hand in it. Chris Duarte had team highs in points (23) and assists (seven) and Eugene Omoruyi added 17 points, six rebounds and five assists as 7 seed Oregon knocked off 2 seed Iowa 95-80.
Quickly...
Canadian teenager Leylah Annie Fernandez won her first Women's Tennis Association title. The 18-year-old from Laval, Que., beat Swiss qualifier Viktorija Golubic in straight sets yesterday in Mexico to win the Monterrey Open. This is a WTA 250 event, which is the lowest tier on tour, so it doesn't attract many top players. The No. 1 seed was Sloane Stephens, who's ranked 49th in the world, and Fernandez was the higher-ranked player in four of her five matches despite coming in at No. 88 in the world. But she didn't lose a set the entire tournament and she upset 57th-ranked Sara Sorribes Tormo in the semifinals. Fernandez pocketed about $29,000 US for winning the title and shot up 16 spots in the world rankings, to No. 72 — second only to Bianca Andreescu (No. 9) among Canadian women. Starting today, Fernandez will try to qualify for the more prestigious Miami Open — a WTA 1,000 event where Andreescu is expected to return from a month-long layoff. Read more about Fernandez' Monterrey Open victory here, and read about how her dad/coach uses his soccer expertise to help her tennis here.
The Canadian men's soccer team is off to a good start in its regional Olympic qualifier. Canada opened the CONCACAF qualifying tournament with a 2-0 win over El Salvador on Friday. Its second of three group-stage matches is today at 6 p.m. ET vs. Haiti. Canada needs to finish in the top two of its four-team group to advance to the semifinals, which decide the final two spots in this summer's Olympic tournament. Canada and Honduras are expected to advance from Group B and face either Mexico or the United States, who have already clinched the semifinal spots out of Group A.
And in case you missed it...
A few other things from the weekend you should know about:
Some Canadian freestyle skiers and snowboarders finished their seasons in style. Reece Howden capped off a phenomenal rookie season on the ski cross World Cup tour that saw him win four races, reach two other podiums and run away with the men's season title. Marielle Thompson placed third in the women's ski cross season standings. In snowboard cross, 19-year-old Eliot Grondin finished second in the men's World Cup chase. Rachael Karker captured her first-ever World Cup gold medal Sunday by winning the women's ski halfpipe season finale in Aspen, and Brendan MacKay took silver in the men's finale.
The Raptors had a very bad weekend. The season is really slipping away from them now, and head coach Nick Nurse acted out everyone's frustrations by chucking his mask and yelling profanities at the refs at the end of Friday night's loss to Utah. The outburst earned Nurse a $50,000 US fine. Things got even bleaker with last night's defeat at Cleveland, which made it eight straight losses for the Raptors since a coronavirus outbreak caused two of their games to be postponed. Toronto is now 17-25 on the season and sits 11th in the East — 3½ games out of a playoff spot. With the NBA trade deadline coming up on Thursday, it's looking more likely that free-agent-to-be Kyle Lowry could be dealt to a contender.
Pro hockey saw its first all-Black line in a very long time. Centre Quinton Byfield and wingers Akil Thomas and Devante Smith-Pelly played together Sunday for the AHL's Ontario (California) Reign, who are a minor-league affiliate of the Los Angeles Kings. This is believed to be the first time three Black players formed a line in a pro hockey game since Herb Carnegie, his brother Ossie Carnegie and Manny McIntyre did so in the 1940s. Read more about it here.
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