By Larry Read - TRU Athletics

WolfPack down Griffins to open 2017-18 Canada West MBB season

Oct 28, 2017 | 8:18 AM

KAMLOOPS — The curtain went up on the 2017-18 Canada West men’s basketball season Friday night.

The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack opened up a weekend series facing the MacEwan University Griffins out of Edmonton, Alberta.

The WolfPack held a nine point lead at the half and went onto down the visiting Griffins 80-61 on the Warner Rentals court at the Tournament Capital Centre

It was the first meeting between the teams in nearly two years.

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Both teams had a lot of fresh faces in their lineup and both used a lot of players: everyone dressed saw action.

The WolfPack were led by TRU Bookstore/McDonalds “Leader of the Pack” Luke Morris (5th year, forward, Mission, BC).  He had 29 points and six rebounds in 33 minutes of floor time.   Derek Rhodes (4th year, forward, Anticoch, CA) added 13 points and 4 defensive rebounds in 28 minutes.

MacEwan’s top gunners were Dustin Gatzki (2nd year, wing, Westlock, AB) with 12 points and six rebounds in 25 minutes.  Adonis Monfort-Paolomino (3rd year, guard, Calgary, AB) had 9 points in 30 minutes of court time.

VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS:

(BEING EDITED-CHECK BACK LATER FOR LINK)

KEY STATS:

Thompson Rivers :

Luke Morris (5th year, forward, Mission, BC): 29 points

Derek Rhodes (4th year, forward, Antioch, CA): 13 points

Joe Davis (3rd year forward, Kamloops,BC) : 10 points

Mike Rouault (3rd year, guard, Vernon, BC) 12 points 12 rebounds

MacEwan:

Dustin Gatzki (2nd year,wing, Westlock, AB)   12 points  6 rebounds

Adonis Monfort-Palomino  (3rd year, guard, Calgary, AB)  9 points

Atlas St. Paul-Butler (3rd year, forward, Victoria, BC) 8 points 6 rebounds

Ali Raza: (3rd year, wing, Calgary, AB) 8 points and 3 rebounds

Turnovers:

MacEwan: 14    TRU: 16

Score by Periods:

TRU                18  21  26

MacEwan:    16   14  18

RECORD:

TRU:     1-0          MacEwan: 0-1

QUOTES:

TRU head coach Scott Clark (fifth season):

On the Contest: “ I thought we executed our game plan relatively well.  Guys made some shots and we were a little tougher defensively and the score was in our favor. That is great. But there is a game to be played tomorrow and we have to get ready for that.

On turnovers :”Even still, I thought there was some sloppy ball handling decisions and stepping out of bounds. You can cut that down to 12 turnovers. We would like to keep it less than 15. We had 16. You have to tighten that up.

On everyone getting playing time: “ It was good that everyone got to play today. They get rewarded a bit for coming to practice. It’s good for everybody to have to support everybody. That is the nature of being part of a team.”

Video of post game interview:

MacEwan Head Coach Eric Magdanz (sixth season):

On the game: “ It is a learning curve for us. I thought we did some good things tonight. There is a lot of execution that was lacking. If we can clean those things up it will make a big difference.”

What did he like about his squad: “ We had some guys who came off the bench and played hard and were aggressive. They did some things we wanted to do. It is just really cleaning up some of the smaller details.”

UP NEXT:

The  WolfPack  and Griffins will do battle again tomorrow (Saturday) night at the Tournament Capital Centre starting at 7 pm.  The game will be webcast on www.Canadawest.tv with Jamie Shinkewski calling the play by play. Kendric Carlock will be the color commentator and Kashara Atkins providing interviews.  The pregame show begins at 6:50 pm.