The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack women’s basketball team begins its third season in the Canadian Intrauniversity Sports two weeks from today.

With the season fast approaching, head coach Scott Reeves is seeing a lot of improvements over last year.

With the team one year older and the addition of a few new recruits, Reeves said the team should be quicker and bigger than last season.

The team hosted Laurentian, University of Alberta and UBC-Okanagan last weekend and collected a 1-2 record.

Thought they lost to Alberta, 90-70, and Laurentian, 74-60, the team defeated UBC-Okanagan, 81-54.

“The weekend in general our inexperience really showed. The effort was there,” Reeves said.

“Our youth in turning over the ball was high. If we can cut the turnovers we could have won that game against Alberta.”

Reeves used the three games as an opportunity to try different line combinations and see how the rookies are adjusting to the higher level of play.

“I tried different match ups to see who worked well together. That’s what the preseason is all about,” Reeves said.

“Our size has improved over a year ago. I expect us to be able to press a little bit more. We’re a little more athletic. We can score more points since we have that inside pressure. We didn’t have that before.”

The Pack has that extra presence inside from Diane Schuetze from Vernon and Tracy Kocs from Coquitlam.

The team travels to Kelowna’s Friday for one more pre-season game against the Heat, a team playing in the BCCAA.

“If we approached it like a conference game it would have been a different result, But we used it to get th girls into games. ,” Reeves said. “We can work on our defence and try new lines.”

The regular season gets underway Oct. 24 against the University of the Fraser Valley at 6 p.m.

TRU guard Beth McNeill battles with Madison Kaneda during Sunday’s game at the Tournament Capital Centre. Harpreet Sidhu/KTW