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The clock read 2.3 seconds left as Gage Grassick stepped up to the foul line in Quebec City, Que., on Sunday night.
Knowing her University of Saskatchewan Huskies were moments away from capturing their second straight U Sports women’s basketball national title, Grassick rimmed out on her first free throw attempt.
Read more:
- Golden Huskies receive warm welcome after U Sports women’s basketball title repeat
- Back-to-back: Huskies women’s basketball team repeats for gold at U Sports nationals
- Huskies star Gage Grassick named Canada West player of the year for second time
Her second attempt, however, dropped with ease to put a final period on one of the most storied careers in Huskies basketball history.
“I made the last shot of my career,” Grassick said. “Six years flushing through my mind of all the games played, all the practices, everything that led up to that point.”
Five and a half years after making her debut on the court as a Huskie, Grassick’s time in the green and white has come to a close.
Grassick capped off her U Sports career with a 77-68 victory over the University of New Brunswick Reds on Sunday in the gold medal game of the U Sports women’s basketball championships. Grassick is going out on top for the second year in a row as she and teammates Ella Murphy Wiebe, Andrea Dodig, Téa DeMong and Anna Maelde all graduate with gold medals around their necks again.
“I’m just unbelievably honoured and grateful to be in that position twice,” Grassick said, “especially in a national championship and to be able to share it with this group of young females.”
The Prince Albert product leaves the Huskies as one of the program’s all-time greats, named Canada West women’s basketball player of the year in back-to-back seasons and a U Sports first team all-Canadian.
Grassick also became just the second student-athlete in Huskies history to win the Nan Copp Trophy as the top women’s basketball player in all of U Sports, earning the award for her 2024-25 season.
“She’s everything,” said Huskies head coach Lisa Thomaidis. “As she went, our team went and she’s the engine. She’s like another coach on the floor just the way she can process information, how quickly she can process information and communicate to her teammates.”
Statistically, Grassick leaves as one of the most well-rounded players ever to suit up for the Huskies ranking top-six in career games played (114), points (1,572), assists (486), rebounds (643) and minutes played (3,457). She also has tallied the most steals in program history with 290, a full 34 steals more than the next highest total at 266 by Claire Dore.
According to Murphy Wiebe, Grassick’s biggest impact came in her role as team captain and as a leader who willed the team to record-breaking win streaks and national gold medals.
“She is the glue to our team,” Murphy Wiebe said.
“I have never experienced a leader like her. She is so competitive, yet so supportive. I have never once felt like she didn’t believe in me and so much of my success is contributed to her.”
Thomaidis has watched Grassick flourish from a sophomore starter in relief of graduate Libby Epoch into one of the top guards across the country.
All the while displaying a clutch gene which showed itself in the biggest games and on the grandest of stages.
“To get the job done in the biggest moments, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Thomaidis said. “She’s everything, so she’s irreplaceable.”
Learning the game on her family farm just outside of Prince Albert, sinking baskets on a basketball hoop connected to a patch of grass, the big stage of U Sports nationals seemed impossibly far away for Grassick.
Now with a trophy case as full as any player who has worn the Huskies uniform before, she’s evaluating where basketball takes her as she finishes up her pharmacy degree.
“It’s shaped who I am today,” Grassick said. “It’s shaped what I want to do in the community, it’s shaped what I want to do in the future and how I want to uphold myself. Not only that, now being able to shift roles into potentially a coaching position.”
Another stint on the Canadian national junior 3-on-3 basketball team isn’t out of the question either for the high-producing guard, who won gold for Team Canada at the Junior Pan-Am Games in Paraguay last summer.
Read more:
- Golden Huskies receive warm welcome after U Sports women’s basketball title repeat
- Back-to-back: Huskies women’s basketball team repeats for gold at U Sports nationals
- Huskies star Gage Grassick named Canada West player of the year for second time
Playing on provincial teams while attending high school at Carlton Comprehensive in Prince Albert, Grassick said Saskatchewan basketball was always overlooked by those from hotbeds across the country.
She hopes with the final chapter closing on her U Sports career that the conversation is beginning to change around elite talent coming out of Saskatchewan.
“I’m hoping that female athletes following in my footsteps,” Grassick said. “Knowing that it’s possible to win not just one national championship, but two.”
