Horns swept by Dinos to open season

By Lethbridge Herald on October 27, 2025.

Herald photo by NAthan Reiter Dre Francis of the Calgary Dinos boxes out Joe Lemieux of the Lethbridge Pronghorns during Canada West menÕs basketball action on Saturday night.

By Nathan Reiter

Lethbridge Herald 

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 

The University of Lethbridge Pronghorn basketball teams are still in search of their first wins of the season after dropping all four games at home against the University of Calgary Dinos over the weekend.

Women hoping to learn lessons from opening weekend

For the Pronghorn women, it was a tale of two games. Lethbridge fell 80-70 on Friday night before falling 83-52 on Saturday.

Despite the results on the scoreboard, head coach Dave Waknuk says there were some positives to take from the weekend for Lethbridge.

“It’s always tough when you close with a loss on a Saturday, because I think Friday there was so much good in it. I think you focus on the point spread on the Saturday game. As I told the team, take it as a whole, there’s a lot of good basketball in there. There’s a few minutes and few plays that we would love to get back, a few longer stretches Saturday where you want to get it back. That’s a top four, top five team in the conference so they’re a tough team. We showed we can hang with them one night, not so much the next night. It’s a good place to kind of measure yourself.”

In Friday’s contest, Courtney McKee paced the Pronghorns offensively with 21 points shooting eight for 15 from the field. Kamryn DeKlerk (11), Abby Stonehocker (11), Piper Dobbelsteyn (10) and Halle Aleman (13) all had double digit points. Calgary was paced offensively by Christine Geraldo with 21 points. Pollyanna Storie (13), Lilia Skumatova (13) and Kourtney Oss (11) were the other double digit scorers for the Dinos.

Saturday was a different story for Lethbridge. The Pronghorns shot 17 for 56 from the field and only went three for 17 in three point attempts in the loss. McKee was the only Pronghorn to have double digit points on the night with 13.

Waknuk says the game as a whole was a tough pill to swallow, but necessary for long term success. 

“It’s one of those ones where you play a good team, it’s a good chance to learn what they’re doing that’s exposing us and what’s not working against them. I think that makes you better. That’s a senior team. They have a lot of fourth and fifth year players, so there’s a lot of players you can look to and say, OK, they make those decisions. Why? Because they see this, they see that. It’s a great chance for us to learn from it.”

Men drop pair of close games

For the Pronghorn men, late game execution turned out to be the difference, dropping Friday’s contest 92-87 and giving up a second half lead in an 83-80 setback on Saturday night.

“It’s always tough when it’s a nail biter and basically a one possession game.” Pronghorn head coach Kenny Otieno explained in a postgame interview with the Herald on Saturday. “I feel like different factors can attribute to the losses, but I feel like a big one for us is just our poise in pressure situations where we let the emotions of the game get to us and we rush through things. I’m still proud of the effort from our guys, both games. We fought till the end. Obviously, they have a lot of talent on their team, but I feel like we have a lot of talent on our team. Just a game of inches and we just weren’t able to get the crucial stops and good possessions in the late moments in the game.”

In Friday’s contest, Kymani Pollard paced Lethbridge offensively with 25 points. Lu Dalil and Bryce Solis each added 16 points off the bench for the Pronghorns. Calgary got scoring from Daniels Baumanis (18), Martynas Sabaliauskas (14), Dre Francis (11), Hayden Franson (17) and Daniel Chijioke (12). 

Lethbridge held a 65-57 lead over the Dinos after three quarters on Saturday, but Calgary would outscore Lethbridge 26-15 in the final quarter to complete the comeback.

Otieno says Lethbridge was pressing and trying to do too much in certain situations in the game. 

“Just seeing the opportunities that we’re able to create in those late game situations where it’s not necessarily hunting the quick three or trying to get a home run play. Maybe it’s just situations where just trying to put pressure on getting to the rim and getting a quick two and then getting a stop. I think this definitely helps us prepare for situations where it’s close games and how we’ll make the adjustments on how we can create easier shots for the guys that are on the floor. The late game execution stuff, I feel like we’re just going to get better from these experiences.”

Mrigendra Dhaliwal led Calgary with 37 points on the night including 11 for 17 from the field while making six three point shots on nine attempts. For Lethbridge, Kymani Pollard led the way with 28 points while Jaxen Perrett added 10. Lu Dalil (12) and Bryce Solis (20) added some bench scoring for the Pronghorns.

Both Pronghorn teams return to action on Halloween night when they welcome the Brandon Bobcats to the Co-op Centre for Health and Wellness. The women’s game tips off at 6 p.m. followed by men at 8 p.m.