Coming off their second home sweep of the season, the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns men’s basketball team will stay on home court this weekend and host the Regina Cougars for a pair of games to close out the first semester of conference action.
The Horns, who are 5-3 in on the season, have been perfect at home, winning all four games on the 1st Choice Savings Centre floor, including wins against the UBC Okanagan Heat and Thompson Rivers WolfPack last weekend.
After scoring 81 and 90 points respectively last weekend, the Horns moved up to third in conference scoring averaging 80.9 points per game, but rank as the ninth best defensive team, surrendering 76.6 points per game.
Nearing the mid-point of the season the Horns are one of the most balanced teams offensively in Canada West, placing four players in the top 24 in conference scoring. Coming off a 30-point performance last Saturday, Logan Reiter leads the Horns in scoring averaging 15.5 points per game. Newcomers Brandon Brine and Jared Baker are averaging 14 and 13.3 points per game, while Morgan Duce rounds out the quartet with 12.9 points per game.
For the Cougars, while they won their last game, beating the UNBC Timberwolves, they were losers of their previous six games and sit at 2-6 on the season, good for sixth place in the Mountain Prairie Division. The 13th ranked offensive team in the conference, averaging only 69 points per game, the Cougars only have two players that average double digits in points with Brandon Tull leading the way, averaging 13 points per game. Brenden Hebert is the other Cougar to do so at 10.5 points per game.
Tip-off for Friday and Saturday night’s games are scheduled for 8 and 7 p.m. respectively and both games will be streamed live on http://canadawest.tv.
Women's Basketball
For the second week in a row, the Pronghorns women’s basketball team will play at the friendly confines of the 1st Choice Savings Centre and will face a strong test, hosting the CIS fifth ranked Regina Cougars.
The Horns are tied for sixth in the Prairie Division at 3-5 and are coming off a weekend split where they beat the UBC Okanagan Heat before losing a two-point game to the Thompson Rivers Heat, 66-64.
Ranked ninth defensively in the conference, the Horns held the Heat to just seven first half points on Friday night and average 62.2 points against per night.
At the other end of the floor, the Horns have struggled offensively thus far only scoring 54.8 points per game, but they showed some life last weekend, scoring a season high 77 points Friday and 64 points Saturday. A big reason for the Horns' offensive resurgence was the return of 2012-13 leading scoring Ali Cameron, who had missed the previous six games due to injury. In her first two games back she scored 12 and 24 points.
A bright spot this season for the Horns has been the play of fourth-year forward Kim Veldman. In seven games this year, Veldman has recorded five double-doubles and sits second in conference scoring, averaging 20.3 points per game. She is also second in conference rebounding, averaging 11.7 rebounds per game.
Tip-off for Friday and Saturday night’s games are scheduled for 6 and 5 p.m. respectively.
Men's Hockey
The Pronghorns men’s hockey team (1-12-1) will close out the first semester of conference action this weekend hosting the UBC Thunderbirds (3-10-1) in a pair of games at Nicholas Sheran Arena.
Puck drops both Friday and Saturday night at 7 p.m. and both games will be streamed live on http://canadawest.tv.
For the Horns, the first half of the season has been a difficult one and they enter the weekend winless in their last seven games. The Horns are hoping to build off of Saturday night’s shootout loss to the Mount Royal Cougars, a game that saw the Pronghorns battle back from a 5-2 deficit to force overtime before falling in the shootout.
Women's Hockey
On the heels of their first four-point weekend of the season, the Pronghorns women’s hockey team travels to Vancouver to face the defending Canada West and conference leading UBC Thunderbirds in both teams’ final games of the first semester.
This weekend’s match up will be the second meeting of the year. On the opening weekend of the season, the Horns and Thunderbirds split their series in Lethbridge but the Horns earned an extra point in a 5-4 shootout loss before beating UBC 3-2 the next night.
The Horns put an end to a four-game losing streak last weekend in a big way, sweeping the Mount Royal Cougars in a home-and-home series. The pair of wins put the Horns right back into the playoff picture and they currently sit one point back of the Calgary Dinos for the final post-season position.