CALGARY – Amélie Collin broke the Canada West record for career steals, opening the gates for the University of Calgary Dinos women's basketball team as they took a convincing 73-47 victory over the Mount Royal Cougars Friday night in front of 1307 fans in the Jack Simpson Gym.

"It's incredible," said Collin, beaming. "Of course I had it (the record) in the back of my head and wanted to get it, but I didn't know I was going to get it tonight. It just felt like the ball was getting in my hands and just having my teammates behind me. It was incredible."

Recording 309 steals – and counting – the fifth-year had nothing but good things to say post-game about the program she's stuck with.

"It means the world," she said. "I came here for the program and the whole coaching staff and teammates behind it and I've truly enjoyed myself. I've grown so much – in my first year I struggled a little bit – but it just felt right to be here.

"Having everyone behind me, especially in these last couple of months, everybody has just been cheering for me and it's been awesome."

The night started early for the home team as Christine Geraldo scored the first basket just 12 seconds in, initiating a 13-0 run.

The Cougars then placed three straight baskets to gain a little momentum, but were quickly shut down yet again by the Dinos, ending the first quarter 19-9.

Collin's record-breaking night started early. Coming in with 302 career steals and six behind Ashley Wigg's Canada West record of 308, Collin collected an incredible five steals in the opening frame alone to put everyone on record watch.

It was the visitors who started the scoring in second quarter with an eight-point run after Temi Ajayi did a quick spin to deke through Dinos defence, but the home team wasn't phased as they put up a 16-point run in the second half of the quarter to close it out 37-26.

During the big run, Collin hauled in two more steals to bring the crowd to its feet, acknowledging the career achievement by the senior from Rimouski, Que.

Speed seemed to be the theme of the night as a quick four points from Lilia Skumatova extended the Dinos lead early into the second half. A collection of free throws continued to widen the gap, but MRU stayed in it with a few baskets of their own as Cougars Nora Luca took a jump shot to shorten the gap and make it 50-33 in favour of the Dinos.

The home team's runs continued to be the kicker to the visitors in the fourth quarter. A 13-0 run in the middle of the quarter gave the Dinos a wide 69-37 lead. Although the Cougars gained 10 points in the remaining minutes, it was Calgary who took a 73-47 win in the cross-town rivalry.

"It was definitely up and down," said Dinos head coach Sarah Besselink. "We showed moments of good pressure and creating turnovers and good transition. When we fouled and didn't get stops, we didn't necessarily get to play at the pace that we wanted to play at, but overall pretty good."

The rivalry rematch is set for Saturday at the Jack Simpson Gym with tip-off at 4 p.m. Although the Dinos will honour their graduating players ahead of the game, it'll be nothing but business on the bench once the whistle blows.

"Definitely our quarter court against their 2-3 zone," said Besselink, mentioning what they're keeping an eye on tomorrow. "There's a lot of things that we can clean up and I felt today that we looked a lot at our teammates and not necessarily the defence. We had a lot of unforced turnovers, so taking carer of the ball is definitely going to be number one key tomorrow."

Added Collin,
"Obviously MRU is always going to fight, we're their rivalry so it's always going to be a tough matchup. We want to clean up some things. It was not perfect today. Obviously, we're a great team and it showed how we just came out strong, but clean up some things and just sticking to the plans.

"We want to finish the season on a high and finish on a win and then playoffs mindset, but we're just going to go out there and fight for sure."

-UC-