CALGARY – Down 31 points with two minutes to go in the third quarter, the University of Calgary Dinos somehow found life and crawled all the way back to eight points down before falling 96-87 to the Trinity Western Spartans Friday night in the Jack Simpson Gym.

BOX SCORE

The victory, the Spartans' 13th consecutive, moves them to 15-2 on the season and keeps pace with UBC for first place in Canada West, while the Dinos fall to 5-10 on the campaign with the rematch upcoming Saturday night.

Trinity Western's outstanding outside shooting, particularly in the first half, led them to a lead that turned out to be insurmountable – though Calgary did everything it could to surmount. Jacob Doerksen went 5-for-7 from beyond the arc, scoring his first nine points from the deep perimeter as the Spartans rained threes – a total of 14 of them – on the Dinos.

“If we got a couple stops down the end, we probably could have made a difference in that game, but you can't give up 96 points and expect to win,” said Dinos head coach Dan Vanhooren. “They were 14-for-27 from three and 10 of 14 at the half, and that makes it pretty hard. It means we then rotate too much and give up open three-balls all the time, and we have to make that adjustment.

“I'm proud of our guys – we play hard, we work hard, and we have a future with a lot of guys. It's just too bad that we have as many injuries as we do, because it's very clear to me now that we would be competitive.”

The first half flew by as the teams combined for just 16 fouls in the opening 20 minutes and the Spartans used their size and athleticism to open up looks on the perimeter. Doerksen had 18 at the half, and the visitors took a 52-35 lead into the break.

Trinity Western managed to put up 29 points again in the third quarter to extend their lead further, and a thunderous dunk and one by Clint Wickham gave the Spartans their largest lead of the night at 31 points with two minutes to go. Wickham missed the free throw, and that seemed to spark the Dinos offensively. Calgary outscored the Spartans 40-18 from that point as they kept chipping away at the lead, but the Dinos ran out of clock in the nine-point loss.

Doerksen's 26 points led all players on the night, while Calvin Westbrook went 3-for-3 from three to finish with 16 while Tonner Jackson added 12 and Tristan Smith 11.

For Calgary, Tyler Fidler was solid again with 24 points on 7-of-18 shooting from the field, with Dustin Reding adding 17. Trevor Debolt and Matt Letkeman were the other Dinos in double digits, draining 13 and 12, respectively.

Calgary shot an impressive 46 percent from the field on the night, but the Spartans were that much better at 52 percent – not to mention their three-point shooting, which accounted for nearly half their scoring.

The Spartans overnight in Calgary and will take on the Dinos once more Saturday night, with tip-off slated for 8 p.m. MT in the Jack.

-UC-