THUNDER BAY – Sports – The Lakehead Thunderwolves basketball teams travel to London this weekend for double header affairs with the Western Mustangs. The women will attempt to get back over the .500 mark and stay in playoff contention, while the men cling to 2nd place in the OUA West.
Game time Friday and Saturday is 6 pm (women) and 8 pm (men).
Thunderwolves mens Coach Scott Morrison comments, “After a good stretch of games I felt our focus and execution dropped a bit this past weekend. Our goal this week has been to address some weak points in our game and get our minds locked in on a tough Western team. Western has a number of outside shooting threats plus one of the toughest 1 v 1 matchups in the league in [Peter] Scholtes.”
Women (5-6, 6th place OUA West)
Following last week’s pair of losses to Brock (CIS #7), the Thunderwolves sit in the final playoff spot in the OUA West (tied with McMaster), although a sweep this weekend would leep-frog them into 3rd place, as only 1 game separates the 3-through-6 positions.
Western (6-5) has a 4-2 home record, losing only to Brock and Carleton at Alumni Hall. They are led by Jenny Vaughan with 20.0 points per game (CIS #4) and are the 4th best defensive rebounding team in the nation with 29.7 per game. Sophomore forward Jory McDonald leads the team with 7.1 rebounds per game.
Coach Jon Kreiner shares, “Western is a very talented squad that can beat any team in the CIS. Jenny Vaughn is one of the top point guards in the country and Laura Dally is a very versatile scoring guard that can light it up at any time. Annabel Hancock is a terrific shooter and Melissa Rondinelli is a factor inside and on the boards. We need to bring our A game to compete and play at a consistent high level. For three quarters of last Saturday’s game we played at that level and if we can put 80 minutes of solid defense and smart offense together we can compete and put ourselves in a position to be successful.”
Men (6-5, 2nd place OUA West)
The men’s team will look to keep pace in the race for the OUA West crown. With McMaster tied with the T-Wolves with 6 wins and Windsor 3 wins ahead of them (although Lakehead has 1 game in hand), Scott Morrison’s team can settle for nothing less than a sweep of the lowly Western Mustangs who are the singular occupants of the OUA West cellar at 1-10.
With that in mind, the T-Wolves will look to contain top Mustang Peter Scholtes (13.3 PPG, 4.4 RPG), who managed to 54 points last year’s games in Thunder Bay, including an impressive 35-point effort in a 87-66 loss to Lakehead.
Thunderwolves Injury report:
Brendan King (lower body) – Out
Games will be Webcast via SSN Canada, courtesy of Mustangs TV. Game time Friday and Saturday is 6 pm (women) and 8 pm (men)
