THUNDER BAY – Sports – Badgers Scratch Out Win as T-Wolves Falter. The Lakehead Thunderwolves women’s basketball team came up short on Saturday evening, losing 52-46 to the Brock Badgers. Lakehead got to work early on the Badgers, battling hard in the paint against a much bigger team with good rotations and positionally sound defense. The result was that Brock’s big players (Rosenkranz and DeJong) could not have their way so easily, as they did on Friday night. Grinding the game down to a slower pace, Lakehead was up 12-10 after 10 minutes, and the game was tied at 24 at halftime.
The third quarter was the breakout one for the T-Wolves, who continued to play lock down defense and had their best offensive quarter of the weekend, scoring 21 points with timely shooting and transition baskets.
With just 10 minutes remaining, Lakehead had themselves a 9 point lead (45-34), but henceforth abandoned the principles that got them there. Lakehead would not score another field goal for the remainder of the game, and hit on 1 of 4 free throws in the final quarter.
Leading scorer for the T-Wolves was Ayse Kalkan with 21 points and 9 rebounds with 3 assists. Carolyn Fragale grabbed 6 rebounds and dished out 5 assists. Kelsey Bardsley rebounded from a tough outing on Friday to score 9 points.
For the Badgers, Kayla Santilli led with 17 points (3-5 from three) and Samantha DeJong had an impressive 15 points with 15 rebounds.
Coach Jon Kreiner commented “We played a much tougher game tonight against #7 Brock [than last night]. Our defense was much better and we did a great job on Rosenkranz. Santilli killed us in the 4th but that was off turnovers and scrambling defense. Brock’s defense was physical in the fourth quarter and we couldn’t break it down. It’s hard to win against a good team when only one player gets to the free throw line so we need to work on moving the ball against desperate pressure defense in practice. We need to be tougher through contact and make teams pay for pressuring that hard. In all our young squad got better. This experience will help us as we look to rebound against a very skilled Western team.”
The women will be on the road next weekend against the Western Mustangs for a double header.
