LETHBRIDGE – Following their first post-season appearance in 17 years, the Lethbridge Pronghorn women's basketball team heads north to Edmonton to take on the Alberta Pandas in a best of the three Canada West quarterfinal.
 
Game one and two of the series is Thursday and Friday at 6:00 p.m. and game three, if necessary, will be Saturday at 5:00 p.m. All three games will be webcast live on pay per view at www.canadawest.tv.
 
A look at the teams
 
In the program's first home playoff game since 1994, the Pronghorns (12-8, 1-0) jumped on the visiting Manitoba Bisons early and ran away to 39 point victory.
 
The Pandas (15-5) had a bye last weekend after finishing with the fourth best RPI and will be well rested heading into the best of three quarterfinal.
 
During the regular season, the Pronghorns and Pandas had very similar numbers statistically.  Offensively, the Pandas averaged 74.3 points per game, compared to the Pronghorns 73.9 and defensively, the Pandas allowed two fewer points against per game, 67 to 69.
 
This weekend will be the first playoff match up between the two programs since 1986, which ended a three year run of the Pronghorns and Pandas meeting in the post-season. The Pandas beat the Pronghorns in 1984 and '85 but the Pronghorns exacted some revenge winning the 1986 Canada West semi, en route to a bronze medal at the national tournament.
 
The Pronghorns and Pandas did face each other during the regular season in Edmonton with the Pandas winning two close, highly contested games.
 
Players to watch
 
In the two games versus the Pandas earlier this season, Pronghorn leading scorer Kacie Bosch scored 12 points in both low scoring games. She finished the season averaging 15.1 points and tied for the game high 17 points with Amy Mazutinec in the Pronghorns playoff win last Friday over Manitoba.
 
After a slow start to her Pronghorn career, NCAA transfer Asnate Fomina has found her stride of late, averaging 18.5 points per game over the final four regular season games and picked up 15 points, eight assists and six rebounds in the Pronghorns first playoff game.
 
For the Pandas, Emma Kary led the Pandas with 17.2 points per game, ninth best in CW. Vanessa Wild finished second with a career-best 15.2 points per game. 
 
Up Next
 
The winner of the quarterfinal series will play the winner of a series between the top seeded Saskatchewan Huskies and Winnipeg Wesmen, who upset UBC in the play-in game.