LANGLEY, British Columbia – The Winnipeg Wesmen bettered the Trinity Western Spartans 87-66 in a Canada West women's basketball pre-season match up Thursday night at the Langley Events Centre in Langley, B.C.

The Spartans, who trailed by 18, 46-28, at the half, matched the Wesmen for much of the final 20 minutes, 41-38, but were unable to overcome the first half deficit. The loss drops the Spartans to 2-2 in Canada West pre-season play. While the win moves the Wesmen to 5-0.

NOTABLE

• With tonight's loss TWU is 8-19 lifetime against Winnipeg. The Spartans last win against the Wesmen was January 4, 2019 when TWU won 60-57 at the LEC.
• Winnipeg had the edge over Trinity Western in rebounding Trinity Western 50-33, created turnovers 23 to TWU's 19, and shooting: 47.4 per cent from the field to TWU's 43.1 per cent. The Spartans were the better team from the three point line, shooting 50 per cent, 7-14, to the Wesmen's 37.5 per cent, 6-16. TWU was also better from the foul line at 53.8 per cent, 7-13, to Winnipeg's 50 per cent, 9-18. Fransson had.
• Kianna Wiens, with 22, was the lone Spartan to score in double figures, while Nicole Fransson led the Spartans with 10 rebounds to go with eight points. Kyanna Giles with 25 points and 12 rebounds, Keylyn Filewich with 16 points and nine rebounds, and Jessica Van Dyck with 13 points led the Wesmen.

QUOTABLE
TWU Head Coach Cheryl Jean-Paul
"Playing against some of the best players in our conference will reveal a lot in terms of what is going well and what is really important to focus on in our next few practices that we need to fix, and that's what happened tonight. It was great to see players push back in the second half and challenge some of the easy looks they were getting early in the game."

"We have a lot to work on but we also have a lot to work with, so looking forward to getting after it in the coming weeks of training. We have to focus on the runs they took advantage of early in some quarters and learn from how they pushed at the end of each quarter to maintain their lead. That's what the best teams do, and how they exploit what's working for them until an adjustment is made. It was exciting to witness some great rookie efforts which bodes well for this upcoming season in establishing our depth and our looks that we hope we will continue to see more of as we get ready for our first regular season games."

NEXT UP
The Spartans will be the UBC Thunderbirds on Thursday, October 28 in the Canada West opener. Game time at UBC's War Memorial gym in Vancouver is set for 6 p.m. PT. The next night the Spartans will have their Canada West home opener when thy will host the Victoria Vikes. Game time at the Langley Events Centre on Friday night is set for 6 p.m. PT.

About Spartan Athletics
As official members of U SPORTS, the Spartans currently compete in 13 sports in the Canada West conference, including women's and men's soccer, volleyball, basketball, hockey, cross country and track & field, as well as women's rugby sevens. TWU also competes as an independent team in men's rugby. Since TWU entered U SPORTS in 1999, the Spartans have won 12 U SPORTS team championships and 29 Canada West team championships.

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