CALGARY – The fourth-ranked Calgary Dinos exploded for 32 points in the fourth quarter to overwhelm the Alberta Golden Bears 84-76 Friday night in front of 979 fans in the Jack Simpson Gym.
BOX SCORE
Playing without captain Henry Bekkering, who is sidelined with a nagging neck injury, the Dinos scored more points in the fourth quarter than the entire first half (31), overcoming halftime and third quarter deficits of five and two points, respectively, to improve to 10-1 on the season.
With his brother sidelined, fourth year forward Ross Bekkering picked up the slack and had a solid night for Calgary, posting yet another double-double with 24 points and 17 big rebounds to lead all players in both categories. His season-best performance was his seventh double-double in 11 conference games and featured 13-of-15 shooting from the charity stripe.
“Ross just shows what he's capable of when he's put in that situation,” said Calgary head coach Dan Vanhooren. “There was a lot of rebounding available for him out there tonight. It's nice when he is able to perform like this to show just what he's capable of doing.”
It was an entertaining contest that featured 25 lead changes, nine of which came in a fourth quarter that went back and forth before Calgary took the lead for good with just over three minutes to play.
After the first quarter ended knotted at 15-15, Alberta jumped out to a 36-31 lead at the half on the back of strong performances from Neb Aleksic and Harvey Bradford. As has been their custom of late, the Dinos came on strong in the second half, cutting the Golden Bears' lead to just two after the third, setting the stage for the back-and-forth final 10 minutes.
An early triple from Tyler Fidler gave Calgary the lead at 57-56, but Bradford responded for Alberta with an easy layup seconds later to but the visitors back up top. The lead flipped between the two sides six more times before Jamie McLeod found a wide-open Andy Rochon behind the arc, and the rookie's trey made the score 70-67 Calgary. Justin VanLoo immediately pulled the Bears within one, but the Dinos slowly added to the lead as the seconds ticked off the clock.
Vanhooren was impressed with the play of his key players, who stepped up in the elder Bekkering's absence.
“We did it without any of our guards shooting the ball well, which I think our team is capable of,” he said. “They were doubling our posts, so that opened up some shots for us, and if we had hit some of those the game is a different game early. They played us tough though, and we have to give them credit for that.”
The Dinos made 29 trips to the free throw line and came away with 24 points, double Alberta's 12 attempts at the charity stripe.
“We can't go to the line 25 or 30 times and shoot 60 percent, because so much of our game is down on the post picking up fouls,” Vanhooren said. “We have to shoot the ball well from the line, and I'm glad we did that tonight.”
Robbie Sihota had a solid game for Calgary as well, recording 20 points to go with 10 rebounds in 38 minutes on the floor, while Fidler drained 13 and McLeod added 10.
The foursome of VanLoo (20), Aleksic, Bradford (15 each), and C.G. Morrison (13) accounted for 63 of Alberta's 76 points. Aleksic left the game early in the fourth quarter favouring his left leg, but he did return to action down the stretch.
Calgary's lead over Alberta (5-6) stretches to five games in the race for the Central Division title, with the rubber match in the weekend series slated for Saturday night at the Jack.
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