LANGLEY, B.C. – Six players scored in double digits Friday as the seventh-ranked University of Calgary Dinos used a big third quarter to run away from the Trinity Western Spartans 108-86 Friday night.
Lucas Mannes tallied 23 of his 39 points in the first half and had TWU within five points, 45-40, at the break, but a Calgary run late in the third quarter turned the game the visitors' way and, from there, the highly-touted Dinos (11-3) pulled away for a 22-point win. All told, Calgary out-scored TWU (0-11) 37-25 in the third quarter as they picked up their seventh straight win.
The Dinos, who had six players with double-digit point totals were led by Canada West scoring leader
Thomas Cooper, who had 23 points.
Matt Letkeman had a game-high 11 rebounds to go with his six points in just eight minutes on the floor.
Josh Owen-Thomas (16),
Lars Schlueter (14),
Dallas Karch (13),
Jasdeep Gill (10), and
Mitch Ligertwood (10) joined cooper in the scoring spree.
For the Spartans, Mannes came three points shy of the TWU school record of 42 points. Vartan Tanielian had 17 points while Sebastian Eliasen had a career-high 14 points and a team-high six rebounds and Kelvin Smith (Los Angeles) had 10 points.
Calgary shot 50.7 (36-71) per cent from the field while TWU was 41.1 (30-73) per cent. The Spartans hit 13 three-pointers on 34 attempts and the Dinos hit 11 on 26 offerings. Calgary had a 51-34 edge on the glass.
The first quarter saw Mannes put up 15 points for TWU and the Spartans hung with the Dinos, trailing by just three points, 26-23, through 10 minutes.
The second frame was more of the same as Calgary attacked with a balanced offence and TWU relied largely on Mannes. The Spartans guard put up eight more points and TWU trailed 45-40 at halftime.
Early in the third quarter, the game changed. With 6:22 left in the quarter, Calgary held only a slim 55-52 lead. However, that's when the Dinos took over. Calgary broke the game wide open and by the end of the quarter was up 82-65.
From there, the Dinos cruised to the finish line without much of a Spartans push back.
The teams will play the rematch Saturday at 8 p.m. MT at the LEC.
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