CALGARY – It was a valiant effort from the Calgary Dinos, but the no.5 ranked Trinity Western Spartans were just too much too handle down the stretch on Saturday, beating the Dinos 92-77.
BOX SCORE
Jacob Doerksen scored 25 points and hauled down nine rebounds for the Spartans, who improve to an impressive 16-2 on the season. The 2009 CIS Player of the Year led all scorers in a dominant effort from both inside and out, hitting a trio of three-point shots to complement his traditional shooting touch in the post.
Second year shooting guard Andrew McGuiness led Calgary in scoring, notching 20 points on four for eight shooting from beyond the arc, while first year Dinos Youri Anissovets and Brad Clark each posted ten points in solid efforts.
Clark, in particular, showed off his skill set this weekend for the first time all season as he just recovered from an illness that kept him away from action. Clark put an exclamation point on his Dinos' debut with a thunderous dunk on top of a Spartans defender late in the fourth quarter, firing up a crowd who tried valiantly the entire game to keep the home-squad in it.
For the second straight night, the Spartans blew the game open right off of the tip, with an early lead ballooning to 22-6 at one point in the first quarter. Trinity Western notched 32 points in the opening frame to the Dinos' 16, setting the tone early in a game where they never trailed.
Calgary, who sported a line-up with no fifth years compared to five on Trinity Western's side, never gave up despite the early deficit, even cutting the lead to four at one point. After hitting a pair of free throws midway through the third, Tyler Fidler would capitalize on a Tristan Smith turnover to hit a long three point shot to make it 55-51, seemingly shifting the games' momentum. Unfazed however, Trinity simply took over from there, eventually taking the 17 point victory.
Calvin Westbrook hit some timely buckets for Trinity Western, finishing with 15, while Calgary Christian School alum Lance Verhoeff finished with 13 points and five rebounds.
Fidler finished with 16 for Calgary, while Matt Letkeman also hit double digits with ten points.
Head Coach Dan Vanhooren was able to keep perspective despite the lopsided loss.
“'A' for effort,” sighed a smiling Vanhooren. “Trinity rebounds the ball really well, and they get extra possessions because of it. Coupled with how well they shoot the ball, it's tough to play against them. They're a very good basketball team.”
“We can take positives from this,” he continued. “We scored 87 and 77 on them, which is good for confidence with this young group, and a lot of guys got really positive minutes which will only help them grow.”
Trinity Western will head home to prepare for an enormous weekend against Saskatchewan, while Calgary will hit the road to face Thompson Rivers in Kamloops, who are 3-15 on the year.
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