Women's wrestling narrowly misses out on second national championship in a row

The Dinos were only two points behind the Simon Fraser University Clan for the women's title when the Canadian Interuniversity Sport wrestling championships wrapped up Saturday at the Jack Simpson Gym. The Clan took both the men's and the women's titles in their last season in the CIS. Next year they move all their sports teams to NCAA division 2.

Gen Haley was named the outstanding wrestler of the meet after she won her fourth CIS gold medal in four years in the 51 kg category. Dinos Jazzier Barker (59 kg) and Leah Callahan (82 kg) also picked up gold for the University of Calgary. Alex Burk was the highest finisher for the Dinos on the men's side, placing second in the 82 kg category.

The women's team title came down to the last two matches for the Dinos. They needed a gold medal from Erica Wiebe in the 72 kg category in order to have a shot at winning. But she was in tough against University of Alberta Panda Ali Bernard, who won and became the first woman in CIS history to win five gold medals at the championships.

The Clan finished with 56 points, the Dinos with 54 and the University of Western Ontario Mustangs were third with 37 points. The Dinos men finished in 12th with 16 points.



Men's basketball make it back to nationals, lose out on CW banner



With a win in their first game of the Canada West final four weekend, the Dinos guaranteed themselves a spot in the Final 8 tournament in Ottawa March 19-21. The Dinos will be attending back-to-back national tournaments for the first time since 1980. But they were unable to secure back-to-back Canada West titles after they lost to the University of Saskatchewan Huskies in the CW final.

Fifth-year Robbie Sihota snagged a Canada West playoff record 22 rebounds in an 82-69 win over the Simon Fraser University Clan in the CW semi-final. Ross Bekkering led all players with 22 points.

On the other side of the bracket, the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds, who went most of the season unbeaten and in the top spot in the national rankings, lost to the Huskies. Because of that, there's no guarantee that they'll be at the national tournament to try and improve upon their second-place finish from last year. They now await the final playoff results from CIS action this weekend to see if they can snag the one and only wild card spot in the tournament.

In the CW final, the Dinos came up against a tough Huskies team which was trying to capture the school's first ever CW banner. A tie ball-game in the fourth was cracked open by a Huskies offence which put up 27 points to the Dinos 14. They took the game and their first CW banner 96-83. Three Huskies put up at least 20 points in the win -- Michael Linklater with 29, Showron Glover with 21 and Duncan Jones with 20. Linklater was one steal and four rebounds shy of a quadruple double.



Track and field CIS championships in Windsor



Though the Dinos don't have a shot at the team title at the CIS championships, they may still come away with a few medals from the meet. The Dinos took both the CW athletes of the year awards, Amonn Nelson for the women and Sam Effah for the men. Effah is the two-time reigning CIS Track athlete of the year and will compete in the 60-metre and 300-metre sprint as well as the 4x200 metre relay.

Nelson will compete in the 300-metre and the 4x100 and 4x200 relays.

The host University of Windsor Lancers are favoured to win the women's side and are second behind the University of Guelph Gryphons on the men's.