by Jill Strelieff
the Carillon

A trip to Calgary didn't produce the results the Cougars wanted this past weekend as they met the University of Calgary Dinos on Friday and Saturday night. Although they played well on Friday, they didn't on Saturday which slightly disappointed head coach James Hillis.

"Both games, we didn't play particularly well," Hillis said. "We played better on Friday but we still didn't do what we had to do. Calgary was a team that I thought we were good enough to get at least a game from, and we didn't."

"The story of the first game was probably how well Calgary shot the ball. They were fifty-three percent from the three point line and over sixty percent from the two. Our percentage was not nearly that good. We were twenty percent from the three on Friday and although we shot better on Saturday, credit to them [Calgary]; they obviously shot the ball well but I think we also have to question our defense. We didn't do a good job of that."

Tyler Wright, who was outstanding during the weekend, felt that his team could have performed better against the sixth ranked Dinos.

"It was disappointing," Wright said. "We've had a rough season this year. We're having trouble scoring on offense this year which is tough considering the great offensive players we have. It's kind of disheartening."

"From what I've seen on tape and from what I've heard - from talking to their coaches and such - that was the best they [the Dinos] have played all year, which is what you want to be doing at this time of year," said Hillis.

Despite the less than satisfactory play of the weekend, the Cougars are hoping to finish the regular season on a high note as well.

"We have to start playing better, and shooting the ball better," Hillis said. "This [coming] weekend doesn't mean anything when it comes to ranking."

Instead, the Cougars are going to use the upcoming weekend games in Winnipeg against the University of Winnipeg Wesmen as practice for playoffs.

"We're going to have playoffs and in all likelihood, we're going to be playing Brandon in Brandon, who we have beaten before. That's at least in our grasp. Beating Brandon is our focus right now," said Hillis.

"Our strategy will be to not show anything new to Brandon as we have a few new things, and give some of the guys on the bench who maybe haven't played much this season to show us what they got," said Hillis.

"We want to execute, and hopefully by doing this we can win," said Wright. "Really, these games don't mean anything so we want to prepare for Brandon. We're going to work on our offense and defense, and really execute. But the big thing is to play as a team. We want to win in playoffs."