Saturday, January 7, 2012

Lakehead Sweeps Western with 87-66 Victory

The Lakehead Thunderwolves had the opposite start on Saturday night as they did on Friday as Western opened up the game with an 8-1 run and won the 1st quarter 21-17. In the second quarter Lakehead focused its defense and held the Mustangs to 11 points and a Ryan Thomson buzzer beater put the 'Wolves up 4 at the half; 36-32.

The third quarter opened with Venzal Russell leading the charge for LU as he scored 10 straight points himself and helped give Lakehead a big cushion heading into the 4th quarter 64-45. However in the 4th quarter Western's Peter Scholtes took over the game and brought Western back as he scored 24 of his game high 35 in the 2nd half. Scholtes took the 'Wolves off the bounce, stepped out for 3 and posted up and finished inside.

Lakehead was able to re-group and win the quarter (23-21) and the game.
Western played without all-star Ryan Barbeau and starting wing Quinn Henderson. Mustang role players also stepped up and as a team they shot 10-20 from 3pt range but only 8-15 from the FT line. Lakehead on the other hand shot 11-26 from 3pt but a solid 12-15 from the FT line.

Lakehead was led by Venzal Russell with 25 points and 3 steals (10-17 shooting), Joe Jones 16 points on 6-8 shooting and Greg Carter who had 13 points, 5 assists and 2 steals in only 20 minutes of play after sitting out much of the first half with two quick fouls. Ryan Thomson added 10 points and led all rebounders with 6.

Coach Morrison on tonight's win:
It was not our prettiest effort but it was good to see some guys like Russell, King and Jones have good games after struggling a bit since the break. Western's team really stepped up in the absence of two of their main guys and of course Scholtes was possibly the best player on the court offensively over the 80 minutes this weekend. This week in practice we will be working on our man defense discipline as well as looking to create some more opportunities on the glass before we travel to Waterloo to take on the hottest team in the OUA West right now in Laurier.

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