CALGARY – The defending conference champion Calgary Dinos were a little slow out of the gate, but most of the rust quickly fell away as they opened conference play with a 94-56 shellacking of the Winnipeg Wesmen Friday night in the Jack Simpson Gym.

BOX SCORE

It was the fourth straight game the Dinos have held their opponent to under 60 points as the Wesmen could only manage 17 or fewer in each of the four quarters. On the flip side, the Dinos left several points on the floor with free throw shooting under 50 per cent.

“Other than we were terrible from the line, our rebounding was outstanding and I think that was the difference,” said Calgary bench boss Dan Vanhooren. “That gave us extra possessions, and we didn't give them too many second chances. They didn't have a single offensive rebound in the first half and that was huge for us.”

The rebounding advantage was largely on the back of second team All-Canadian Ross Bekkering, who had a dozen in the first half alone and ended up with 19 boards in just 26 minutes on the floor as Calgary out-boarded the Wesmen by a 60-39 margin. Bekkering turned those 19 boards, seven of them offensive, into 16 points on 60 per cent shooting to open his season on a strong note.

After spotting the Wesmen a 5-0 lead in the first 90 seconds of the game, Calgary settled in and held a slim one-point lead with 30 seconds left in the opening quarter. An offensive board and a putback by Bekkering at the buzzer made the Calgary lead three, setting off a 21-3 run for the Dinos that took most of the second quarter. Strong defensive play by the Dinos, who showed a noticeable improvement in speed in the backcourt, held Winnipeg to a mere nine points in the second quarter to make the halftime advantage 18.

From there the Dinos kept coming, outscoring the Wesmen by 10 points in each of the last two quarters to cruise to the 38-point win.

Despite their struggles from the line where they went just 15-for-31, the Dinos shot nearly 47 per cent from the field in making more than twice as many field goals as their opponents.

“I'm certainly happier with our shooting from the field than from the line, it means we're taking better shots,” Vanhooren said. “We didn't share the ball much early in this game, but we did later and that made a big difference. But we have to be better from the line. We were 90 per cent in our first three games, then we turn around and throw up an egg. That's not good enough, and we're not going to beat really good teams by shooting 48 per cent from the line.”

The tandem of Nick Lother and Peter Lomuro scored 40 of Winnipeg's 56 points on the night with 24 and 16, respectively, leaving just 16 points among the 10 other players that saw court time. Lomuro's eight rebounds was the team high, and he also added five steals in a losing cause for the Wesmen.

Robbie Sihota led the Dinos with 19 points, while Bekkering added three blocks to his impressive 16-and-19 evening. Vanhooren was able to get significant court time for all four of his freshmen, with Jarred Ogungbemi-Jackson starting at the point and scoring seven in 29 minutes while Andrew McGuinness had eight points, including a pair of long balls. Dan Tilleman scored seven in 14 minutes with his father Karl in the audience, and Patrick Walker was a force in the paint for Calgary in his 10 minutes on the floor, hauling in six boards and making four trips to the free throw stripe.

The Dinos (1-0) and Wesmen (0-1) close out their weekend series Saturday night in the Jack Simpson Gym, with tip-off at 8 p.m. MT.

-UC-