CALGARY – The University of Calgary Dinos and the University of Winnipeg Wesmen face off in two afternoon affairs this weekend. The series begins on Saturday afternoon in the Jack Simpson Gym.

The men start the weekend off with first serve Saturday at 12 p.m., with the women following at 1:30 p.m. Sunday the women open up at noon followed by the men at 1:30 p.m.

For both Dinos teams, it's a chance to start building some momentum early in the season. Both teams have struggled with inconsistent play through the first three matches and haven't started the season as they had hoped. The teams enter the weekend with identical records of 1-3, after losing at home to MRU and two to Manitoba on the road. Their only wins came against the MRU Cougars on Kenyon Court in the second game of a home-and-home series.

The Wesmen play their second Calgary team in as many weeks after hosting MRU at home last weekend. The 1-2 men are looking to continue their success after squeaking out a tight five-setter to earn their first win of the year, while the women are looking for their first win of the 2012-13 Canada West season.

Calgary's schedule sees the Dinos play at home for the next four matches before finishing up on the road for the last two weekends of the 2012 calendar year. Both Natalie Schwartz and Rod Durrant want to take advantage of playing their first five of eight contests on home soil.

Lindsey Doland, Sarah Moncks, and Courtney Dawson come into the weekend as the Dinos kill leaders – averaging 3.06, 2.88, and 2.59 per set, respectively. Though the Dinos lost both to the Manitoba Bisons they showed resilience in coming back from being down 2-1, after three sets and managed to push the match to five.

The Wesmen are led by second year left-side hitte Ozana Nikolic, the 2012 CIS rookie of the year. She's coming off a huge night against Mount Royal after recording 23 kills – almost half her team's total.

On the men's side, coming off their first win of the season, both Ty Loewen and Tom Douglas-Powell had big nights for Winnipeg. Loewen the third year outside hitter was second on the team in kills with 19 on the night while Douglas-Powell lead the team with a season high 22 kills.

After starting with the first three matches of the season at home, the Wesmen won't get home court advantage until Nov. 23 when they host the Trinity Western Spartans.

The very young Dinos men's squad hasn't done itself any favours, getting behind 2-1 in all but one of their matches so far this season. After losing their season opener at home to MRU 3-2, they followed up with beating the Cougars on their home court by an identical score. The following week the Dinos went on the road and lost two straight to Manitoba (0-3), (1-3), respectively, to start the season 1-3.

The Dinos are counting on second year outside-hitter Connor Frehlich who has lead the team in kills each of the first four games and is averaging 2.88 kills per set to lead the way, as well as fourth-year left side Will Young, and 7-foot-1 middle Ivan Kartev to pick up their play and lead these teams over this weekend's games.

The Dinos have UBC at home next weekend before traveling to Brandon to take on the Bobcats.

-UC-