To realize how far Cassandra Goodis has come in her basketball career, one only has to look back to the gold-medal game between sa国际传媒 and Alberta at the 2009 sa国际传媒 Summer Games in Prince Edward Island.
Goodis helps lead the University of Victoria Vikes (4-2) into sa国际传媒 West battles in Edmonton tonight against the Alberta Pandas (4-2) and Saturday night in Saskatoon against the Saskatchewan Huskies (2-4) in what is becoming her breakout season.
But the Penticton native was just an afterthought on the sa国际传媒 bench in that sa国际传媒 Games gold-medal final three years ago that produced a 2012 London Olympian in Alberta's Michelle Plouffe and future NCAA players from the sa国际传媒 team such as Diana Lee and Lexie Der of Boise State, Shalie Dheensaw of Washington State, Mae Woods of the University of Houston and Cassandra Brown of the University of Portland. Also ahead of Goodis on that sa国际传媒 team were Kris Young, now of UBC and last season's runner-up CIS player of the year, Erin Chambers of SFU and current UVic teammate Jessica Renfrew.
"That was a good experience to go through and put things into perspective," said Goodis. "You see the level of all those players and realize how good you can be."
That followed two years at UVic learning to play in the CIS.
"I wasn't disappointed in my first two years [with the Vikes], but didn't feel I played to my potential - and that now was the time to step up," said the emerging third-year, five-foot-seven Vikes point guard. Has she ever stepped up.
"That was combined with the fact I stayed in Victoria and put in the time working out this past summer," added the psychology major. "We really pushed each other all summer."
While Debbie Yeboah leads the Vikes in scoring with a 16.8 points-per-game average, and Renfrew is second at 12.7, Goodis's contributions can be found in other ways with a sa国际传媒 West co-leading average of 5.8 assists per game and a conference-leading 1.000 free-throw average at 21-for-21. Goodis also has a Vikes-leading 5.8 rebounds per game and a team-leading 2.5 steals per game. Her assist/turnover ratio is third best in sa国际传媒 West.
Goodis has pretty much done it all for the Vikes so far this season.
But this weekend, she will have a new-old face on the Vikes bench directing her and the rest of the Vikes. With coach Dani Sinclair eight months pregnant and unable to fly to Edmonton and Saskatoon, Rich Chambers will be back on the UVic bench for the weekend only. Chambers is the Vikes head coach taking a year off due to family/personal leave and assistant coach Sinclair the head coach for this season. Assistant Leanne Evans is officially the Vikes head coach this weekend with Chambers assisting.
"I don't think it [weekend coaching shuffle] will affect us and we're not worried at all," said Goodis. "We had a good week of practice. And also, Rich knows us well."
In sa国际传媒 West men's basketball, the Pacific Division co-leading UVic Vikes take on the Prairie Division-leading and nationally 10th-ranked Alberta Golden Bears (5-1) - led by CIS first-team all-star and Olympic team prospect Jordan Baker - tonight in Edmonton and the Saskatchewan Huskies (4-2) on Saturday in Saskatoon.
[email protected] Twitter.com/tc_vicsports
