Scheduled Game: REGINA*

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GAME RESULTS 1 2 T Regina Cougars 29 41 70 TWU Spartans 34 45 79 « FINAL

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Game Recap

Men's Basketball (Conference game)
Friday, January 16, 2004
TWU Spartans (79) vs. the University of Regina Cougars (70)

Spartans De-Claw Cougars

Langley, British Columbia - It wasn't pretty, but it got the desired result: another W. The Spartan men improved to 6-5 tonight with a physical, "NBA Eastern Conference-style" 79-70 win over the visiting University of Regina Cougars.

Tonight the fourth-best defense (TWU) in Canada West met the fifth-best offense (Regina), and the defense won. The Spartans' trademark smothering defense had another successful night, effectively shutting down the fifth most prolific offense in Canada West (averaging 79.6 points/game), limiting the Cougars to 37.7% shooting from the field. Tonight's matchup was also billed as a battle of the boards, pitting two of the top rebounding teams against one another, and the final tally was very close with the Spartans holding only a slight 37-36 edge.

Not unlike the women's game, the first half remained quite close, with both teams struggling to put points up on the board. At the end of 20 minutes, the Spartans were up 34-29, with Regina's Tyler Wright (13 points) responsible for almost half of their points.

TWU began to pull away in the second half, stretching their lead to as many as 16, but a streaky-shooting Regina team kept hanging around. The Cougars gradually chipped away at the lead and managed to bring it down to single-digits in the dying seconds of the game thanks to some timely three-point shooting by Matthew Cherkas and a steady stream of fouls to stop the clock.

The Spartans finished with five players in double figures in scoring as Coach Stan Peters got another night of solid team basketball out of his troops. Regina's defense struggled all night to keep up with the home team's crisp passing game, but poor free throw shooting (52.0% by Regina, 62.5% by TWU) by both teams kept the game closer than it might have been otherwise.

Adam Friesen led TWU with 18 points, while Dan Young had a double-double (11 points and 12 rebounds),a s well as a game-high four assists. Brian Banman, Logan Kitteringham and David Bron chipped in 16, 12 and 10 points, respectively.

Tyler Wright led Regina with 19 points and 9 rebounds, and Zach Michell and Matthew Cherkas added 13 points apiece.

Next up for the Spartan men is Brandon University on Saturday night at 8:00pm.

-TW-

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