6 May 2010 Leader-Post

By IAN HAMILTON
Leader-Post

Cougars Land Two Recruits

. . . . . Kayla Hannah is familiar with elbowing.

In her case the elbows fly on the basketball court and she’s perfectly fine with that.

Hannah, a 17-year-old Regina product, cheerfully admits she’ll bring a degree of toughness to the University of Regina Cougars women’s basketball team. The Notre Dame Hounds post and Balfour Redmen guard Taylor Pelletier are the newest recruits to commit to the Cougars for next season.

I may not be as tall as other centres and posts, but I’m tough, the 6-foot-0 Hannah said Wednesday from Wilcox. I have a physical aspect that not many other six-footers have.

It comes from working with my dad (Shane) on our hoop at home. He taught me about being tough and being able to take elbows and not give up.

Usually, when you give a girl a shove early, she won’t come back at you. I’m not giving up and I’m going to take that elbow in the nose.

Cougars head coach Dave Taylor was happy to land a player who can push starting post Brittany Read in practice. His squad didn’t have a true backup post last season, forcing him to employ a smaller lineup when Read needed a rest or ran into foul trouble.

(Hannah) can come in and help us right away, Taylor said. That’s an area where we needed help. She’s a big, physical player and last year we were a little short-handed up front at times.

She can come in and play behind Brittany. I’m hoping she follows the same path Brittany did. (Hannah) can play behind Brittany for a couple of years and then step in, much as Brittany did with (former Cougars post) Chelsea Cassano.

Hannah said she’d be fine with that role early in her U of R career.

Playing with Brittany would be awesome, said Hannah, who represented Saskatchewan at the 2007 Western Canada Summer Games, the ’08 under-17 national championship and the ’09 Canada Summer Games.

With Team Saskatchewan, I learned a lot playing behind Taryn Wicijowski and I know Brittany learned a lot from Chelsea Cassano. I hope I can end up just as good as (Read) turned out.

Pelletier, a 17-year-old who has played for the provincial team over the past three seasons, also will get a chance from Taylor to learn on the fly.

She may not be able to help us right away as much as Kayla, but she’s got a tremendous upside, said Taylor.

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