THUNDER BAY – The Ottawa Gee-Gees are the No. 1 university women’s basketball team in the nation.
They sure played like it on Friday night.
The Gee-Gees never trailed for a second and pulled away early to continue their winning ways, downing the host Lakehead Thunderwolves 71-40 in front of a packed house at the C.J. Sanders Fieldhouse.
Spanish import Evan Guilera, who tied for the team lead with six points, said it was something the T-Wolves will have to look back on as something to build on moving forward.
“We knew it was going to be tough. We just have to use it as a learning experience and just get better from here.”
The T-Wolves trailed 16-7 after one and Ottawa doubled its lead to 18 by halftime, the outcome never really in question after LU’s Kelly-Ann Coloumbe evened the match 2-2 in the early going of the opening quarter.
The Gee-Gees made the most of their shots, hitting 27-of-60 from the field, despite only burying 2-of-18 three pointers.
“I thought it was all right,” second-year coach Hugo Boisvert said. “It was a little chaotic, to say the least, this game – kind of a little intentionally on our end, in terms of how we want to play a little more unstructured.
“There’s going to be some chaos to be expected.”
There just were enough good shot attempts made in close, Boisvert said.
That’ll come with experience.
“It’s just decision-making. They were mixing up their defences quite a bit and I think we’ve got to do a better job of recognizing that on the fly and adjusting. There are a lot of times where we’re coming out of a timeout and they’re changing their defence.”
Ottawa spread out its offence on the night.
Alissa Provo and Natsuki Szczokin each put up a dozen points, with Allie McCarthy chipping in 11. No other Ottawa player put up double digits, with 21 of their 71 points coming from the bench.
Coloumbe, Keira Chow and Guilera were the only Lakehead players who managed more than one bucket from the field. Coulombe did grab eight rebounds for Lakehead, who held Ottawa in check in the third, outscored just 12-11.
There is light at the end of the tunnel, said Boisvert, his team dropping to 2-10, but still within reach of an OUA playoff spot with a good finish down the stetch.
LU currently sits 15th in the league, but Boisvert is convinced there are wins to be had, the Thunderwolves trailing 12th-place Nipissing, who hold down the final playoff spot, by just two games. They’ve got two against Toronto Metropolitan (7-3) at home next weekend, they play York, Brock, Toronto, Nipissing and Laurentian to finish out the season. Excluding Brock the leading team in the OUA Central, and TMU, the remaining teams have a combined 11-36 record.
“We’re just trying to focus on the process day-to-day right now. It would be nice to fight for a playoff spot. We will get into a stretch where we can realistically win six of our last eight, we feel like. So it’ll just be preparing ourselves for that moment,” Boisvert said.
