Dinos earn trip to women hoop nats
McIntosh scores 20 as Calgary earns bronze in Canada West playdowns
For the first time since 2013, the University of Calgary Dinos are headed to the U SPORTS Women’s Basketball Final 8 after a nailbiting 65-63 win over the Trinity Western University Spartans in the Canada West bronze medal game Saturday night at the Langley Events Centre.
Calgary heads to Regina for next week’s national championship after clinching the final Canada West berth in the tournament. Action gets underway with quarter-finals Thursday.
Erin McIntosh led the way for the Dinos with 20 points, while Brianna Ghali added 15 and BobbiJo Colburn chipped in 12.
Including the playoffs, TWU only lost two games all year on home court, with both coming against Calgary. The Spartans finished the year 12-2 at the LEC. Coming off their loss against Saskatchewan last weekend in Game 3 of the Canada West semifinals, the Spartans lost back-to-back games for the first time this season.
Calgary got off to a quick start, opening a 13-4 lead only to see TWU respond with a 11-0 run to even the score. The Spartans then took their first lead of the game, 16-15, on a Brown 3-pointer.
Carrying their momentum into the second quarter, the Spartans opened the frame with a 12-2 run that put the home side ahead 28-17. The run capped an 11-minute span in which TWU outscored the Dinos 24-4. Calgary quickly responded, turning the tides with a highpressure defence, which sparked a 12-1 run. A late basket from TWU’s Ratzlaff sent the Spartans into the locker-room with a 31-29 lead.
Wiens and Ratzlaff had eight points apiece in the first half for the Spartans, while Calgary’s McIntosh had seven points to lead the visitors.
The Spartans quickly opened a five-point gap in the third quarter after a Ratzlaff knocked down a jumper to make it 43-38. But Calgary closed the gap to a single point by the end of the quarter, with TWU hanging on to a 46-45 lead. Brown had 11 points in the quarter for the Spartans. McIntosh and Colburn had four points each in the quarter.
The fourth quarter was all Calgary in the early stages, with the Dinos taking advantage of timely turnovers to grab the lead before pushing its advantage to 61-49 with 4:48 left in the fourth quarter. A layup from Brown launched a late surge from the Spartans, but it proved too little too late in the end, with the Dinos earning a dramatic win.
The playoff journey has ended early for the SAIT Trojans men’s hockey team.
The Trojans were beaten 5-2 by the host University of Alberta-Augustana Vikings on Saturday night, ending their Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) best-of-three quarter-final series after just two games.
“We had a strong start, and then we got ourselves into some penalty trouble because of guys trying too hard,” said Trojans head coach Dan Olsen, whose team was shut out 3-0 in Game 1.
“We took some unnecessary penalties and let them back into the game. Four penalties in a row in the third period when we were down one didn’t help us.”
It is the second first-round exit in three seasons for the Trojans, who were also bounced in the quarters two years ago by Red Deer College.
“We weren’t playing as structured as we would have liked Friday night, so that was our focus going into tonight’s game,” Olsen explained.
“We did a really good job of that in the first and second periods, but then in the third, for whatever reason, we fell apart.”
Trojans rookie Owen LaClare scored both his team’s goals, one in the first and another in the second.
Scoring for the Vikings were Jimmy Sheehan, Adam Osczevski, Mitch McMullin, Travis Mayan and Taylor Armbruster.
The playoff exit ends what was an up and down season for the Trojans. An inconsistent, and at times maddening, first half was followed up with a successful second half in which the offensively challenged Trojans found a way to put pucks into the net.
“We struggled early on, and that might have been too many of the Junior guys still having that mentality of having to do everything on their own,” Olsen reflected. “Our second half was strong, and then we lost two key pieces to our lineup. It just seems like we couldn’t catch a break.”
The losses included Colton McCarthy, a point-a-game player, and captain Dean Allison, who took a slapshot to the face late in the regular season that broke his jaw and ended his year.
Olsen said Allison’s loss affected the team considerably.
“His leadership is invaluable; he has a very uncanny way of being able to settle guys down and getting them to listen and stay focused and I think that hurt us in this series,” he explained.