The University of Victoria Vikes women's basketball team will need to play their best basketball of the second half of the season in order to upset the third-place Regina Cougars in the best-of-three Canada West quarter-final series, beginning Friday night at 5 p.m. PST.

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The Cougars, with stingy defence and several threats on offence, defeated Victoria 72-49 but UVic recovered to win 75-65 a night later when the two teams met Nov. 19 and 20 respectively at McKinnon Gymnasium in Victoria.

Regina is 9-3 over the past 12 games and 12-1 at home this season, while the Vikes are 6-6 since January. UVic is also 6-6 away from McKinnon Gymnasium this season and will need their best road effort to date to win on the Cougars home court.

Joanna Zalesiak (16.3 PPG, 6.5 RPG) is a game-changer and will need to be shut down if the Vikes want to play spoiler in Saskatchewan. Lindsay Ledingham has also emerged as a player to watch for the Cougars.

The Vikes will need to find consistency on offence and find balance both inside the paint and on the perimetre - in their two losses to UBC in the final regular season weekend, the Vikes showed signs of improvement and will hope to take those lessons learned into Regina. #Deborah Yeboah#, a junior guard from Winnipeg who leads the Vikes averaging 13.3 points per game, and freshman guard #Cassandra Goodis# need to create an outside threat to create a balanced offensive look.

Inside, gritty #Vanessa Forstbauer#, #Carmen Lapthorne# and #Sarah Semeniuk# need to get touches and draw fouls.

"We learned we have to play a full 40 minutes especially as we get into the playoffs," she said. "We let them go on runs, I think at one point they had a 10-0 run, and we cannot do that."

UVic has struggled on offence in the first half - being outscored this season in the second quarter - and will hope for a strong start Friday on the road.