Ian Gustafson; Dinos Communications
CALGARY – The University of Calgary Dinos defeated the University of Victoria Vikes 87 – 63 on Saturday night to remain unbeaten on the year at 7-0.
A slow start offensively for both squads in the first quarter that saw a total of 10 points scored by the Dinos and 12 scored by the Vikes.
Both teams turned it around in the second quarter. David Kapinga led the Dinos with 15 first half points and the Dinos went into halftime with a 40-29 lead.
"In the first quarter, truthfully we were getting good shots we just missed them all but if we continue to run our stuff we should be okay," said Dinos head coach Dan Vanhooren. "Tomorrow we have to do a better job on defensive rebounding. We gave up seven in the first half and three more in the third quarter, we have a lot of work to do on that."
Despite the Vikes coming within five points of the Dinos' lead in the third quarter; the Calgary extended its advantage to 62-46 by the end of the stanza. In the fourth quarter, the Vikes were unable to make a comeback and the Dinos improve to 7-0 and the Vikes move to 2-5.
The Dinos were a force to be reckoned with on the defensive end as Brett Layton finished with five blocks and David Kapinga finished with five steals. As a team the Dinos forced the Vikes to turn over the ball 20 times.
"Anytime you're only giving up 63 I think you're in a good space defensively," said Vanhooren. "We did do a good job for the most part, the first half they ended up with 29. They hit three threes at the end of the shot clock ,and give credit to them for hitting those shots."
David Kapinga led the team with 20 points and six assists shooting 50 per cent from the field and shot 3-of-5 from down town.
Mambi Diawara finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds and Brett Layton scored 18 points and nine rebounds to go along with his five rejections on the night.
Jason Scully had a fantastic shooting performance for the Vikes scoring 22 points on 8-of-11 shooting.
"I don't know that we ever really got it going," said Vikes head coach Craig Beaucamp. "I don't think they played very well relative to their standards, and I thought we had opportunities, but I don't think our effort was good enough to pull off an upset.
"At times we made some shots here and there – I mean, we hit 10 threes so we made some shots. At times those shots kept us in the game but we couldn't do anything consistently on the defensive side when we needed to make it closer."
The Dinos and the Vikes will be back in action Sunday afternoon, as the Dinos will host the Vikes once again starting at 3 p.m. MT / 2 p.m. PT.
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Photo by David Moll