BY SCOTT STEWART, TWU Athletics

LANGLEY, B.C. – The Calgary Dinos adapted from Friday night's 88-76 loss and shut down Trinity Western at both ends of the floor to defeat the Spartans 84-52 Saturday night at the Langley Events Centre.

The loss hands TWU (11-3) their first loss since November 17. It is also only the second loss in nine games for the Spartans. The victory gets the Dinos (9-5) back in the win column after two straight losses.

Calgary finished the night with an extra 20 shots over TWU thanks to a 28-6 edge in turnovers. The Dinos used the advantage to outscore the Spartans 25-5 off of the turnovers.

Kayla Gordon (Prince George, B.C.) with 15 points and six rebounds, Tessa Ratzlaff (Abbotsford, B.C.) with 14 points and six rebounds and Sarah Buckingham (Surrey, B.C.) with nine and six rebounds paced the Spartans. The Dinos, who had four players hit double digits in scoring were led by Erin McIntosh (Calgary) with a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds, Liene Stalidzane (Jelgava, LAT) with 19 points, Brianna Ghali (Calgary) with 17 points, and Bobbi-Jo Colburn (Cranbrook, B.C.) with 12 points. 

The Dinos and the Spartans were fairly even through the first quarter as Calgary took an early first-quarter 23-17 after 10 minutes.  

In a reversal of last night Calgary pushed the pace on offence and defence as they outscored TWU 16-10 to take a 39-27 lead into the half time break. 

The visitors blew open the game in the third quarter as they outscored the Spartans 28-11 to lead 67-38 going into the final frame. Both teams cleared benches in the fourth as Calgary outscored TWU 17-14 to earn a 32-point win. 

QUOTABLE

TWU Head Coach Cheryl Jean-Paul

"You have to take the good with the bad. We have found ways to win some games that we didn't necessarily have to learn the hard lessons through those. And I think today was maybe a combination off all the tough games in one.

There were two things that we had to do well against Calgary and one was to take care of the basketball and the other was to defend the three-point line. We didn't find a way to do either of those well. For a team that wants to score in transition turning the ball over the way we did is just giving them the lane and easy points. 

To be able to get to the where we want to go this season in post season play requires you to have to fix things during the game. And we didn't show well in the first halve and we talked about being able to recover. And we got the game down to ten points with the ball and then we started making mental mistakes and trying to over compensate for mistakes. And they took advantage of that." 

"I told the team that we got a very important split this weekend and it is going to matter by the end of the year. Tonight's game gives us a lot of things to work on and I am still very proud of what this team has been able to accomplish. One loss is one loss and it does not define all the work that we have done this season."  

NOTABLE

• Tessa Ratzlaff's 14 points give her 40 points on the weekend and moves her career total to 990 points in her career.
• Kayla Gordon's 15 points give her 1,077 for her career. She trails only TWU alum Holly Strom (1,112) by 37 points for the all-time Spartans record. 

NEXT UP

The Spartans now head to Saskatchewan next weekend to play the University of Saskatchewan Huskies on January 19 and 20. While the Dinos will head home to host the UBC Okanagan Heat.

-TW-