LONDON, ON – The Lakehead Thunderwolves men’s basketball team came away with a 62-55 win over the Western Mustangs on Friday evening. In a defensively-themed affair, the teams exchanged offensive jabs, with any offensive flow hard to come by for either side over 40 minutes. For the Mustangs, their only real push came in the 2nd quarter, out-scoring Lakehead 20-8. With Western leading 31-24 at the break, the Thunderwolves would come out gunning in the 3rd quarter, battling back and taking the lead thanks to back-to-back threes from Joe Hart, his only (yet very timely) points of the game.
Lakehead’s defense managed to keep the Western offense from re-igniting the rest of the way, and got some help from a Ryan Thomson 3-pointer with under 2 minutes to go, giving Lakehead a 57-52 lead. While Lakehead’s offensive execution did not yield its usual production, their offensive rebounding was their saving grace down the stretch. Yoosrie Salhia finished with 10 rebounds (6 offensive), while Greg Carter grabbed 5 offensive boards among his total 7 rebounds.
Carter and Salhia also led the ‘Wolves in scoring with 14 points apiece. Ben Johnson (Pictou, NS) struggled from the field (2-12) but did hit 2 clutch free throws in the final minute to secure the win, finishing with 7 points and 6 rebounds.
The Mustangs were led by Peter Scholtes with 21 points. Greg Morrow had 9 points and 7 rebounds.
Lakehead out-rebounded Western 52-32, and shot 6-24 from behind the arc, compared to Western’s 7-25. Both teams committed 16 turnovers.
Coach Scott Morrison stated “Western came to battle tonight and did a good job making it tough for us to run our offense. Thankfully our defense and rebounding were improved from last week and we were able to grind out a win. Just like every team in the league we have guys battling sickness, injury and fatigue and it’s the time of the season that we find out what guys are made of. We need to move forward and stay focussed on tomorrow’s game.”
The two teams will rematch tomorrow evening at 8 pm.
Webcast coverage provided by Mustangs TV, courtesy of SSN Canada
