THUNDER BAY – For more than seven minutes in the third quarter, the Lakehead Thunderwolves were shut out.
On the night, they shot just 22 per cent from the field.
The defence, steady for most of the early part of the season, struggled to make stops and their opponent, the No.10 Guelph Gryphons, were all too eager to take advantage.
Add it all up and the Gryphons rolled to an easy 70-46 win at the C.J. Sanders Fieldhouse, Guelph improving to 6-1 on the season, the T-Wolves dropping their fifth in a row to fall to 1-6.
Guard Paul Lopez, who led LU with 11 points, said the team was looking to put on a bit of a better show for the home crowd, but hopes the lessons learn will stick when the team hits the road next weekend.
“Against this team, they’re like a top 10 OUA team, we have to fight to the last minute,” Lopez said.
“We can’t focus on the results. We have to get better from these games, these teams that are tough to win against and fight hard.”
Second-year coach Hugo Boisvert said he was happy with a three-minute stretch in the third, when his Thunderwolves went on a 6-2 run to 59-33, Thunder Bay’s Sara Azzolini finally breaking the goose egg in the quarter with a hard-fought bucket with 2:46 to go in the period. Sidney Crawford followed with a pair of free throws, then put one in from the floor.
It just wasn’t nearly enough, Boisvert said.
“The rest of it, I did not think we competed all night, other than those couple of minutes,” Boisvert said, at a loss to why the team is still struggling this far into the 2024-25 season.
“That’s a great question. I think we’ve just got to be tougher on each other in practice and kind of build those habits. Today we just lost our battles individually, which leas to a whole bunch of trouble.”
The Gryphons took control early on in the contest, after Lopez drained a three to give the Thunderwolves a 7-4 lead.
Guelph’s Julia Colavecchia responded with a trey of her own, tying the game , the start of an 11-0 run by the Gryphons that gave them a 15-7 lead. They’d stretch it to 21-9 after one, and carried a 43-27 lead into half.
They’d increase their advantage to 30 points before Azzolini stopped the run.
The Wolve did outscore the Gryphons 13-9 in the fourth.
Guelph’s Macy Weber and Colavecchia led all scorers with 12 points. Keira Chow had eight points for Lakehead, while Hana Whalen came off the bench to score six.
The Thunderwolves play Ontario Tech and Queen’s next weekend on the road, then return home to close out the pre-Christmas portion of their schedule against Laurier and No. 6 Carleton the following weekend.
