THUNDER BAY – A horrendous first quarter was just the wake-up call the Lakehead Thunderwolves needed.
The women’s basketball team on Saturday night was spotted an 8-2 lead by the visiting Ottawa Gee-Gees, then fell asleep at the wheel for the final six-and-a-half minutes of the opening quarter, outscored 20-2 the rest of the way.
But instead of accepting their fate, the Thunderwolves stood their ground in the second and climbed back into the contest.
It was largely thanks to a combination of stellar defensive play and the usual double-double performance from Leashja Grant, who topped all scorers with 25 points, adding 15 boards, despite playing the final five minutes of the fourth with four fouls.
Lakehead outscored Ottawa 62-38 the rest of the way and coasted to a 72-60 triumph to remain tied atop the OUA West at 6-2.
After the rough start in the first, rookie guard Tiffany Reynolds said the team decided it needed to clean things up in its own end.
The rest would take care of itself.
“Everybody was anticipating the pass,” Reynolds said, singling out fellow guard Tianna Warwick-Dawkins, who had five steals in the game.
“The posts were blocking out, everybody was rebounding, so everything worked in our favour.”
Warwick-Dawkins, a freshman from Whitby, Ont., said after the first the team set a defensive goal and stuck to it.
“In the second quarter, third quarter and fourth quarter we had a goal to … keep them under 15 points each quarter and compete every single possession and that’s what helped us.”
Lakehead coach Jon Kreiner blamed himself for a game plan that called for trying to contain Ottawa guard Brooklynn McAlear, who finished with seven points and eight assists.
“We thought we could and she ripped us apart. She had five assists and no turnovers at halftime and she really shredded our defence,” Kreiner said.
“We needed to realize that we were going to score more points than a team that is struggling to score right now. We needed to limit the number of possessions they were getting and limit the number of rotations that we had to have on our defence off our shooters.”
The Thunderwolves quickly closed the gap in the second, Reynolds putting it up and in to pull her team within a point, down 27-26. They’d trail by four at the half.
It was all Lakehead from there on in.
Grant scored twice in the opening 70 seconds of the third to even the score, Lily Gruber-Schulz completing a three-point play at the charity stripe to put the Wolves ahead for good on LU’s next trip down the court.
A Reynolds bucket in the fourth extended their lead to 12, but an offensive foul and subsequent technical laid on an angry Grant put her on the brink of ejection and forced her to the bench for key minutes in the final frame.
Ottawa climbed to within five, but with Grant back on the court and three defenders draped all over her, Bridget O’Reilly buried a three to stretch the lead to eight. She’d finish with 12 points.
Amelie Hachey topped all Gee-Gees scorers with 14 points. Thunder Bay’s Aliisa Heiskanen had three points and seven rebounds for Ottawa (3-5).
The Wolves hit the road next weekend for games against Ryerson and Toronto before hitting the Christmas break.
