CALGARY – Their second-half shooting went cold, they were outscored in both of the final two quarters, and they couldn't make a free throw after half time – but the Calgary Dinos managed to fend off a charging Lethbridge Pronghorns team with a 62-57 victory Friday night in the Jack Simpson Gym..

BOX SCORE

No. 6 Calgary takes a 1-0 lead in their best-of-three Canada West Quarterfinal series and will look to close it out Saturday night in Game 2, which is scheduled for a 7 p.m. tip-off. Game 3, if necessary, will go Sunday at 5 p.m. MT. All games will be webcast live by NUTV at www.educationcdn.com/schools/dinos.

After an impressive opening half that saw the Dinos open up a 42-19 lead at the break, Calgary managed just 20 points in the final 20 minutes while the Horns caught fire and made a 26-point lead as small as three at one point, led by the hot-shooting Danhue Lawrence. Lawrence put up 17 of his 21 points in the second half while former Dino Jeff Price, making his first appearance in the Jack Simpson Gym in the black and blue of the Pronghorns, scored 11 in the second half to finish with 16.

Calgary head coach Dan Vanhooren was frustrated with his heavily-favoured team's collective letdown after the half.

“We have to be a tougher basketball team,” he said. “We came out pretty well and got some easy, open looks in the first half, and we did what we're supposed to do on offence. In the second half, we stopped doing those things, we couldn't shoot our foul shots, we shot awful from the field, and we played poorly. We didn't rebound defensively at key times. This isn't the time of year for our team to be doing things like we just did, and if we don't play better tomorrow we're going to find ourselves in a Game 3 on Sunday.”

Despite their offensive struggles, the Dinos' first-half defence won them the game as they limited Lethbridge to just 19 points in the first 20 minutes while outscoring them 26-7 in the second quarter.

Ross Bekkering's 19-point performance on 7-of-11 shooting led the way for Calgary, and he added eight rebounds in 37 minutes on the floor for the Dinos. Robbie Sihota grabbed the game's lone double-double with his 11-point, 13-rebound effort, while Jamie McLeod scored all 12 of his points by way of the trey.

Calgary's Tyler Fidler struggled mightily on the night, scoring just three points – all on free throws – while going 0-14 from the field.

The Horns did run into some foul trouble in the second half, allowing Calgary to maintain their lead despite the Dinos' anemic 6-of-14 shooting from the line in the final 20 minutes. Both Remington Stemler and Derek Waldner fouled out for Lethbridge, Stemler after just 16 minutes on the floor. Price finished with four fouls, three of which came in the first half when he struggled to just five points while committing seven turnovers.

Outside the 21 from Lawrence and Price's 16, no Lethbridge player had more than Stemler's six on the night.

After back-to-back poor offensive performances against Lethbridge going back to the final game of the regular season, Vanhooren will focus on execution heading into Game 2 Saturday night.

“We'll address our ball movement and our rebounding, and we need to get some shots up in practice so we can hit them in the game,” he said. “I'm tired of us shooting the ball the way we just did.”

-UC-