Lethbridge – With two weekends of conference action remaining, the Lethbridge Pronghorn women's basketball team enters a near must win week, hosting the UBCO Heat in the final home games of the 2016-17 Canada West season.
 
The 'Horns and Heat will tip-off the weekend's action Friday night at 6:00pm and Saturday night at 5:00pm at the 1st Choice Savings Centre. Both games will also be streamed live on www.canadawest.tv.
 
Entering this week's action, the Pronghorns (4-12) are tied with the MacEwan Griffins for the final playoff spot but the Griffins have two games in hand on the Pronghorns. The Heat (2-12) are only two games back but come to Lethbridge riding a seven game losing streak.
 
This season the top 12 teams based on winning percentage qualify for the playoffs but will then be re-seeded 1 to 12 based on each team's RPI Standing in order to account for the various strengths of schedules faced by each team in an unbalanced schedule.
 
Statistically not much separates these two teams with the Pronghorns being the better of the two defensively, ranked 13th (71.0 ppg) compared to the Heat's 15th place ranking (72.0 ppg). The Heat are ranked 12th offensively (60.9 ppg), while the 'Horns dropped to 17th (58.1 ppg) after last weekend.
 
Zoe Dahl and Katie Hankins lead the Pronghorns offensively, averaging 12.4 and 10.1 points per game respectively. Jessica Bachynski sits third in Canada West rebounding, averaging 9.3 rebound per game.
 
For the Heat, Emily Kanester is the lone Heat player to average double digits in points per game with 13, while Claire Elliott sits second with 9.9 points per game.
 
In conjunction with the Student Athlete Mental Health Initiative (SAMHI) and the 'Huddle Up' campaign, the Pronghorn student-athlete council will be raffling off a Clara Hughes signed Pronghorn jersey and taking donations for SAMHI.
 
Saturday night will also mark the finale of the Train Oilfield Bridge Bucks giveaway which gave $100 in bridge bucks to one U of L student each home game. For Saturday night's game one U of L student in attendance will win $750 in bridge bucks. Students can fill out a ballot as they enter the 1st Choice Savings Centre.
 
Check-in to Saturday night's game on  The Horn mobile app . The winner of the Fan Cam contest will also get a chance to win $750 by making a lay-up, free-throw, and half-court shot in 25 seconds!
 
Pronghorns Athletics will also recognize on Saturday the many volunteers from its Operation Red Nose campaign. Over the successful 12 night campaign, 629 volunteers travelled more than 23,000 km to provide the 1159 safe rides home in the community.
 
The 'Horns will have their bye next week and  wrap up the Canada West regular season February 11th and 12th, travelling to Edmonton to take on the Alberta Pandas.