Lakehead Beats Western 91-73 in Game 1

A hot start and even hotter second quarter gave the Lakehead Thunderwolves a 55-32 lead at the half on the strength of 8-16 shooting from 3pt land in the first half. The Mustangs showed some good toughness to open the second half however, drawing some fouls on LU's guards and beating the 'wolves to the paint off the dribble. Western would win the 3rd quarter 25-18 but Lakehead would regroup and, led by Yoosrie Salhia in the 4th quarter, pull ahead for good.

Ryan Barbeau and Peter Scholtes (before fouling out late) put forth excellent games for UWO: Barbeau shot 10-13 for 24 points in 38 minutes of action - drawing the attention of LU's best defenders the entire game. Scholtes was an inside-outside threat dropping 19 points and adding 3 assists to only 1 turnover.

Lakehead was led by Ryan Thomson who hit on 6-9 from 3pt land for 23 points. Thomson added 4 asissts in 33 minutes of action. Salhia had 18 points and shot 4-5 from the free throw line while Venzal Russell had 12 points and 7 assists. Matthew Schmidt had 10 points and 3 assists off the bench for Lakehead.

Coach Morrison on tonight's game:

A great start was the key to the win tonight and much credit to Western for battling hard after their slow 1st quarter. We were fortunate to have shot well from the outside because Western won the battle of penetration tonight including two all-star calibre performances from Barbeau and Scholtes. I expect both teams to make some adjustments tonight and to see a 40 minute OUA West battle again tomorrow night. We are definitely going to have to do a better job making Scholtes catches tougher and keeping Barbeau outside of the paint on his dribble.