High expectations for new season

Axewomen look to keep winning ways going in 2021-22

Many of the faces have changed, but the expectations remain the same for the Acadia Axewomen basketball team this season.

Jayda Veinot is the lone holdover from the Axewomen’s starting lineup from the Atlantic University Sport (AUS) final in March 2020.

“We’re a very, very new group to each another … but we have high expectations of ourselves,” said Veinot, a 22-year-old Port Williams native.

Elizabeth Iseyemi was a freshman coming off the bench in 2019-20. She’s taken on a larger role on this year’s squad and is looking to keep Acadia amongst the conference’s elite teams.

“We have high expectations and were looking to meet them,” said the 21-year-old Dartmouth native.

The Axewomen have made the conference finals each of the past four seasons, losing to Cape Breton in 2017 and UPEI in 2020 sandwiched around back-toback titles in 2018 and 2019.

“The Axewomen have been accustomed to playing on Sunday in Scotiabank Centre,” said head coach Len Harvey said.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do to get back there. I think we do have some footprints to follow though, with what our alumni did.”

The Axewomen begin that quest on Oct. 29 when they start the regular season by hosting Saint Mary’s. And excitement is building for tipoff.

“We have high expectations and were looking to meet them.” Elizabeth Iseyemi Axewomen player

“It’s about time,” said Veinot, a five-foot-10 guard. “We’ve been counting down the days. We’re excited and we host for our first game, so that’s awesome. There’s nothing like playing here.”

The COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the entire 202021 university sport season, but Veinot and Iseyemi both accentuated the positives of what the team was able to achieve.

Iseyemi, a third-year nutrition student in her second year of eligibility, said it helped them develop more as a team and become closer

with each other.

“We had an OK year all things considered,” said Veinot, a fifth-year nutrition student in her third season of eligibility.

“We still had practices.

“At Acadia, students still came to campus. So, although it was still a COVID year, we had as close to normal (season) as possible.”

And while there were no games that meant anything in the standings, the team worked hard all season to be ready for when the games that mattered returned.

That work has shown as this is the fittest team Harvey has had based on its internal testing.

“(With) the culture we have here, we’re always going to get after it,” said Iseyemi, a six-foot post, who

can pose matchup headaches for the opposition with her ballhandling abilties. “We’re always going to give it our best effort.”

But the Axewomen are a competitive bunch who enjoy getting out in front of the crowd and performing after practising all week.

“There were days where it’s like, ‘I’m guarding Lizzy

again, fifth day this week.’ Sometimes those moments snuck in where it’s like,

‘I’m ready to play somebody else,’” Veinot acknowledged, “but we did compete every day.”

Axewomen fans can expect a fun team to watch when they visit the Stu Aberdeen Court this season.

When Harvey looks at his team, he sees a fast, skilled, long and athletic squad where many players can play multiple positions, which is a growing trend in the game.

“(It’s) certainly not like the conventional 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 basketball team,” Harvey said.

“It’s a fun way to play (with) lots of ball movement, lots speed and it’s a fun style to watch.”