Women's cross country student-athlete, Lacey deJong and men's hockey student-athlete, Joe Caligiuri have been named the Smitty's Bison Sports Athletes of the Week for the week ending October 2/11.

The Bison women’s cross country team placed third at the annual U of Saskatchewan Open held at Lakewood Park in Saskatoon. Lacey deJong (nee Ginter) was the top Bison runner (only Manitoba in the Top 10) as she finished ninth in a highly competitive field of Canada West runners in a time of 16.41 over the 4500m course.

deJong has already had a strong start to her fifth and final season at Manitoba as she was the top Bison runner (23rd) at the first meet of the season – the 2011 Roy Griak Invitational at Minneapolis, MN on Sept. 24.
 
 
Manitoba has a bye and will resume running during the local event at the 2011 Chris McCubbins Provincial Cross Country Championship held at Kilcona Park on Saturday, October 15.

The Bison men’s hockey team could not begin the 2011-12 Canada West season on a better winning note. The team posted a road weekend sweep of the pre-season number two team in the conference – the Calgary Dinos. Goaltender Joe Caligiuri (pronounced Cal-a-jury) was instrumental in the back-to-back wins on September 30 and October 1.
 
Caligiuri was the starting goaltender in consecutive 2-0 victories at Father David Bauer Arena. The Winnipeg native backstopped the Herd with 25 and 21 save shutout performances over 120 scoreless minutes.

The second year netminder stymied the Dinos as they went 0-4 on the power play on Friday, September 30 and 0-9 on the man advantage on Saturday October 1.
 
Not only were the Dinos swept in a home series in regulation time for the first time since Nov. 7-8, 2008 but for Manitoba, this was the first time the Bisons swept the first two games of conference play since 2009-10 season (vs. Saskatchewan) and also the first time they swept the first two conference games on the road since 2007-08 (at Regina).
 
 
Manitoba (2-0-0) has a conference bye on Oct. 7-8 weekend and then heads back to Alberta on Oct. 14-15 weekend when they face the pre-season number one conference team in the Golden Bears in Edmonton for a two-game set.