This is not Halifax Thunder’s first rodeo.
This is the first rodeo for the Truro Tidal Queens.
That sets the stage for a Sunday Maritime Women’s Basketball Association sudden-death semifinal to determine which squad will advance to the PRO·LINE Legacy Cup Final Four next weekend in Fredericton.
Halifax has won two Legacy Cup titles, going back-to-back in 2023 and 2024 and offers a slew of battle-tested players.
Expansion Truro has some veterans, but found out the MWBA is a tough circuit when you’re the new kid on the block.
Thunder rolled to a 9-1 record, earning overall regular season championship bragging rights and earning the right to carry the No. 1 seed in the Nova Scotia Division. Truro finished 0-10 and enters the fray as NS No. 4.
Game time is 6:30 p.m., at DalPlex on the campus of Dalhousie University in Halifax.
All signs point to a Thunder win with the veteran experience it can roll out at any given time. Truro would create the biggest upset in MWBA history if it can keep it close late and try and get the post-season win.
Thing is, who stops whom?
Halifax enters with one of the nation’s all-time greatest university basketball players and former Canada Basketball national team member, Justine Colley-Leger and her bag of skills. She can dish, she can shoot, she can drive. She can dictate a game on her own. Colley-Leger finished with 14.9 points per game, 5.3 assists and seven rebounds an outing.
Haley McDonald. Legendary Acadia University Axewomen who competes like it’s her last game every possession. Elizabeth Beals-Iseyemi is coming off her second professional season in Germany’s 2.Bundsliga. Ava MacNutt, Maddy White, Bianca Helmig and the unheralded go-about-your-business and high compete factor of Sandy Saunders. And the size of Kali Grootenboer in the paint.
Head coach Ben Miller can dip into his bench at any time and have five formidable players on the floor as Halifax spreads playing time throughout the lineup.
That’s the Thunder in a proverbial nutshell.
Solid and deep.
Truro comes in knowing the story.
The team has had some shining moments under head coach Lonnie States, but it has been a formidable task in the MWBA.
States has some weapons of his own with veteran talent such as Kendra MacKinnon, Courtney Cain-Nordin, Lily Newberry and Nalini Maharaj. Key injuries hampered the Truro of some depth in the second half of the season.
The Tidal Queens struggled to find consistent offence and against the Thunder, the game can get away quickly if offensive opportunities fall by the wayside.
Tyler Malloy, Quendara Provo, Katie Titus and Hailey Giffin will provide floor time, but will have to lock down on defence.
Thunder won both divisional games this season including a 92-52 win May 31 and a 116-50 victory back on May 2.
– Justine Colley-Leger is a Thunder sparkplug entering the MWBA post-season. (TC Sports Media Photo)
