She just earned her third straight OUA Player of the Year award. Madalyn has been the best player in the province and one of the best in the country, and it's in every aspect of the game.
In 2021, Brock was introducing a group of 10 rookies to the OUA. A large shift from the last time the Badgers were on the floor before that with their 2019 OUA championship team. Among those rookies was a 5'10 guard who would be staying local to St. Catharines, Madalyn Weinert. Between Brock and McMaster, Madalyn chose to switch her commitment to Brock after initially committing to McMaster, and her career in the Badgers uniform started.
She came into a shifting team playing as a third guard in the lineup, playing alongside either Mackenzie Robinson or Jenneke Pilling and Ivana Twumasi with Samantha Keltos and often Madison MacInnis. Where she fit into the team early on was winning extra possessions on the glass and playing well off the catch as a scorer. She notes the physicality of the OUA as one of the first things she noticed coming in, and you saw her constantly find ways to make an impact even with the physicality, getting to her spots efficiently on offence and knowing where to be on defence to create extra opportunities. She was second on the team in rebounds per game in her first year and her dribble pull-up and efficiency driving to the rim made her threatening to the point she averaged 46 per cent from the field.
The Badgers made the OUA Critelli Cup final and the U SPORTS bronze medal game in 2021 with Madalyn starting in both as she had every game that season. Though the Badgers came short of trophies in Madalyn's rookie year one thing was clear, they had something special with number 12 and she could be a centre piece of a contender with her ability on the floor.
Madalyn took her standout rookie year, and got in the gym with family to keep getting better. "Over the past few years, my dad has been in the gym with me a lot. We are constantly working on skills and he is always reminding me of ways to be the best player I can be."
From her first year to her second year, more of a responsibility got put on Madalyn with the shift in the team, and her development matched that increased role. "The biggest adjustment from my first to second year was that we had a restructuring of the team. We lost a lot of crucial players, so it was an adjustment bringing new people into the lineup and then figuring out the identity of our team."
The restructuring was the loss of veterans like Samantha Keltos, Mackenzie Robinson, Ivana Twumasi and Jenneke Pilling, and the large group of now second year players being some of the leaders on a team with only three fourth year players and one third year. Madalyn saw her minutes increase to 30 minutes per game, up from 24 in her rookie year, and she took a large step forward on both sides of the ball in terms of her contribution.
Most notably through her second and her third year, her play on the defensive side of the ball really stood out. In her second year she tripled the number of toal blocks she had and nearly tripled the number of steals. She really became a centrepiece of the Badgers structure defensively while on the offensive end she doubled her points per game to 17.6. If her first year was establishing her place in the OUA, it felt like her second year was setting herself up to have success in as many facets of the game as she could, and that only improved as her years in the program went on.
Brock went 12-10 in 2022-2023, a season full of streaks on both sides eventually leading to a quarterfinal loss to the 21-1 Queen's Gaels 71-66.
"From my second to third year, for the most part, the team stayed the same, so there was not a large adjustment that year, as we knew each other and were in a good flow." The Badgers didn't need to add much going into the 2023 season with a lot of their roster going into their third year or younger. With a few stepping into bigger roles and needing larger contributions, Brock was ready to take the next step with the group they had the year before, and Madalyn took the step with them.
As was the case from her first to second year, as opportunity showed itself for leaders to take more control of the team, Madalyn did just that. As she was getting better defensively and attacking more on offence, her role within the team grew to a point where the team went through her on the floor more and more. She was now fully emerging as the face of the program and the 2022 OUA Second Team All-Star played 35 minutes per game, the most of her career, improving every statistical category from points to rebounds, blocks, steals and assists. Madalyn averaged 22.5 points per game and 9.6 rebounds per game on a Brock team beginning to gel more as they took advantage of continuity they hadn't had to that level during Madalyn's career so far.
She asserted herself and the "hard work, effort and determination" she attributes her development to, and became a player who had an argument to be one of the best scorers and individual defenders on the floor at any given time. Her sense of where to be defensively to create turnovers, her reading of the floor and efficiency getting to where she wants to be on offence, all phases took a leap forward in her third year and she won her first OUA Player of the Year award dominating all aspects of the game.
She reached 1000 career points near the end of her third year, and in her final two years, the accolades just kept growing. She was now one of the faces of the league, the player of the year and a U SPORTS First Team All-Canadian. Brock was coming off a season where they went 17-5 and won their division but lost in the quarterfinal to the TMU Bold. They wanted to get back to the national stage where they had been in 2019 and 2021, and Madalyn was going to do whatever it took to help them get there.
She, as she did each year before, found ways to improve her game. She improved her points and rebounds per game while playing slightly less minutes than she had the year before. She was now the leader on the team alongside Oluwatito Akinnusi and Angeline Campbell who each took a step forward the year before to be one of the top contributors for the Badgers. Together, the three of them became the core three for Brock's run in 2024. Madalyn put up her then career high in points with a 36-point performance against the McMaster Marauders on February 8 2025, and her then career high in rebounds a couple games later in a February 15 win against the York Lions.
Madalyn's career efforts in her fourth year brought her yet another OUA Player of the Year award and a U SPORTS First Team All-Canadian nod. She fully proved herself to be the best player in the league and consistently one of the best in the country, and as she dominated more and more on the floor, the history books started creating a bigger space for her name.
1000 career rebounds at the start of December 2025, 2000 career points in January 2026, climbing into the top 10 of all-time career points across U SPORTS at the end of January. She was in full gear doing her thing on a nightly basis and by the time her fifth regular season concluded, she held the most career points in regular season games in the history of the Brock Women's Basketball program. Every week it seemed like Madalyn was breaking a record, and her third straight year of averaging a double-double, featuring an incredible 36-point and 25-rebound performance against the York Lions on January 28 2026 got Madalyn the three-peat of OUA Player of the Year awards.
Voted the best player in the league for the third time in a row and among the top in U SPORTS history for both points and rebounds. Someone who is always willing to put in the work and let her teammates take the credit. When asked about having her name in the record books and having all the OUA Player of the Year awards, she made sure to talk about the people who gave her the opportunity to play basketball at the U SPORTS level, and it is a massive credit to who she is as a student athlete.
"It is super cool to be written into the history books at Brock, but it truly is a reflection of this team and the program. I am so thankful that they took me in five years ago and have supported me the entire way. I will always be grateful for the coaches, support staff and my teammates who have made this some of the best years of my life."
Hard working, gracious and as determined as ever to push every team she is a part of to the highest point. U SPORTS is not going to see another Madalyn Weinert but her accomplishments have made sure the people in U SPORTS never forget her era.