WolfPack defeats ThunderWolves

The TRU WolfPack men’s basketball team defeated the Lakehead University ThunderWolves in exhibition play Thursday night at the Tournament Capital Centre.
The 87-77 win marked the last home game in the team’s exhibition season.
During the first quarter of the game Lakehead lead the scoring, taking every opportunity they could, while TRU seemed to be holding back. At the end of the quarter the WolfPack was losing 18-26.
In the second quarter the WolfPack took a positive turn and managed to take the lead back from Lakehead.
WolfPack player number 21, Drew Bleth and player number four, Jeff Friesen, dominated the court during the game on Thursday. As half time approached the WolfPack was winning 39-33, with 13 of those points being credited to Bleth and 16 of them to Friesen.
The third quarter was a constant back and forth of baskets resulting in the WolfPack leading once again, 69-60.
For a brief time during the final quarter of the game Lakehead overtook the WolfPack, but they battled back and took the lead, resulting in an 87-77 win for TRU.
Number 21 Drew Bleth was the team’s top point scorer of the evening with an impressive 26 points, while number four Jeff Friesen followed closely behind with 24 points.
“Friesen had his moments… he had a strong game, Drew had a strong game too,” said Head Coach Thom Gillespie in an interview after the game. “It was definitely a team effort.”
“There is a lot of new and young talent and we can expect the same in the coming games,” said Gillespie. “Flashes of Brilliance and moments of not greatness…but certainly a good group of guys.”
Gillespie said that the team’s focus in upcoming games would be to take care of turnovers.
This is Gillespie’s first year coaching at TRU, but given the teams record in the exhibition season so far we can expect good things from him and the team in the season to come.
The men’s season opener will take place on Friday October 24 at eight p.m. against the University of the Fraser Valley in Kamloops at the Tournament Capital Centre.
The WolfPack women’s basketball team opens their season at six p.m. on October 24 as well, just before the men.

Hi my name is kaleena...

Before class today Heather and I were sitting in Dairy queen discussing what we thought would be happening in our class with Shawn beginning at 12:30. Heather was picking disgusting warm lettuce out of her 1.79 chicken wrap well I enjoyed a pumpkin pie blizzard, which by the way only come out in October and are highly recommended by me, but this is beside the point. We decided that in class Shawn would likely make us interview someone else in class and have to report back on what we found... Something similar to those first awkward days in high-school when you found yourself forced to introduce the person next to you in the class by what you had learned in your 5 minute interview session with them previously. Though in this case we expected it to be something more enlightening than, “Hi this is… what was your name again? Ka…Kleenex, no that’s not right.” It happened okay, not my proudest moment and definitely a tangent but this was what I was expecting to be presented with in class today.
So upon our arrival to class and Shawn presenting us with the assignment of the day I was not really surprised. I paired up with Jenny because she was sitting beside me and I honestly haven’t spent very much time getting to know her, aside from the occasional chat over beer’s at “the fox and hounds,” but nothing of a substantial matter.
As we were given the assignment I was pleased to see that Shawn had provided us with a set of questions to ask the other person, I’m terrible at preparing questions for interviews by the way and feel that I will fail as a journalist because I “ummm” and “Ahhhh” so much I expect my interviewee to run away from me in a fit of boredom. Which I suppose I could come to the conclusion that I have abandonment issues, which would make my answer in my interview that I have a fear of “being alone” quite true.
O snap I have gone off on yet another tangent... back to the exercise.
So I suppose that from this exercise I have come to the realization that I need to prepare better questions before getting to my interviews, although my ability to make them up as I go was somewhat effective in interviewing Jenny today.
I have also come to the conclusion that when all else fails and you find yourself unable to come up with another question the best way to get information out of someone is to simply ask “why.” Have you ever found yourself faced with a four-year-old asking you this same question over and over, you can’t help but answer them, no matter how many times they repeat it you want to do your best in answering the question, even if you don’t know the answer. Now of course we can’t ask it to much as our interviewee may get fed up with you, like many parents due with their children when they are sick of answering their questions.
Which reminds me of an episode of family guy, totally off topic but definitely shows the power of asking too many annoying questions. “Dad why did the dinosaurs go extinct,” Chris asked to which peter replied “because you touch yourself at night.” This tangent has a point… KNOW WHEN TO STOP ASKING QUESTIONS AND KNOW WHAT YOU SHOULD OR SHOULD NOT ASK.
So time is seemingly over and my last realization of the day is that I forget to introduce myself when doing an interview, doesn’t matter who I am interviewing, I begin with, “ Hi I’m a reporter from the Omega, can I ask you some questions?” And ultimately need to change that up to include my name because I am sick of forgetting and at the end of my interviews throwing in…
“ By the way my name is Kaleena, thank-you for your time.”

Baseball winning streak halted

The WolfPack baseball team’s 11-0 winning streak was halted Saturday in a game against the Kwantlen Polytechnic Eagles at NorBrock Stadium.
The team came into the weekend on a high after their success against Kelowna on Wednesday; the 9-5 win brought the total wins this exhibition season to 10.
The team started out their first game Saturday afternoon with promise, but by the end of the fifth inning were losing 3-0 to Kwantlen. The sixth inning was the turning point, and as Head Coach Ray Chadwick pointed out “we battled back and won.” The team’s first run was scored by number one Scott Nevison followed closely by an impressive four more runs in the sixth inning bringing the score to 5-3, and their winning streak to eleven. Number 21 Adam Halland, number two Kyle Dhanani, number 55 Ben Bradford, and number 49 Robert Morrison are credited with the remaining runs in the first game.
The team’s first defeat of the season came in game number 12 as once again they found themselves losing 3-0 at the end of the fifth inning. This time the WolfPack was not able to pull off another miracle in the sixth, though a strange sense of déjà vu arose as number one Scott Nevison ran into home scoring the first run of the game for the WolfPack once again. Number 16 Matt Walker scored a run in the seventh inning, and number two Kyle Dhanani finished up the scoring in the eighth.
Unfortunately Kwantlen achieved two more runs between the sixth and ninth innings, with the final score being 3-5 in favour of Kwantlen.
Coach Chadwick credits the loss to a number of mental mistakes and the fact the team did not make plays behind the pitcher finally caught up to them.
This loss is especially disappointing to the team as Kwantlen is a “team we should beat every time,” said player Adam Halland. “We didn’t really hit very well and we could have hit better,” Halland stated.
Though the loss ends the teams winning streak it definitely does not end the exhibition season, the team shows great promise for what is to come, with 16 new players out this year, there is still plenty of baseball to catch.
The team’s next home game is October 4, at 2 p.m. against Kelowna at NorBrock Stadium.