By Jon Roe
The distance running season culminates this weekend with the Canadian Interuniversity Sport cross country championships Saturday in Kingston, Ontario. Both the Dinos men’s and women’s teams will be looking to defend their Canada West titles.
Rookie Katie Fenton, who won the Inland Northwest XC Challenge in Moscow, Idaho against both CIS and NCAA-calibre runners, will be running for Rookie of the Year and All-Canadian honours. The women’s squad is currently ranked fourth in the nation.
The Dinos men will be looking for strong runs from Matthew Cloutier and Spencer Pootz, who have five top-ten finishes between them. The men’s team is ranked fifth in the country, behind fellow Canada West squad the University of Regina Cougars.
Basketball
There’s no break for both basketball teams as they take on the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades at the Jack Simpson Gym this weekend. The women’s team plays at 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, the men’s 8 p.m.
Coach Shawnee Harle’s women’s basketball team find themselves in a tie for first place in the prairie division after a two-game sweep of the Bisons in Winnipeg last weekend. Fourth-year forward Ashley Hill had 42 points over the weekend and currently leads Canada West in scoring.
The men’s squad continued their dominating start to the season by beating the Bisons twice in Winnipeg. Third-year guard Tyler Fidler has paced the Dinos so far with 20.3 points per game, good for the fifth best scoring average in the conference. Forward Ross Bekkering leads the conference with 11.3 rebounds per game. Their opponents, the Cascades, are 2-0 after an opening weekend sweep of the Wolfpack.