THUNDER BAY – LU Sports – The Lakehead University Thunderwolves basketball teams will board a coach Thursday afternoon and head east on Hwy 17 to Sault Set Marie for games against the Algoma Thunderbirds (Friday), and then onto Sudbury for match ups against the Laurentian Voyageurs (Saturday).
Game times are 6pm (women) and 8pm (men) both evenings.
Thunderwolves Game Previews
Thunderwolf Women (1-3)
The women’s team faced the Algoma T-Birds (0-4) once in the preseason (Oct 3), winning 69-50 in the their first exhibition game. This is Algoma’s inaugural season in the CIS, and they have struggled thus far, managing only 35.8 points per game on offense while giving up an average of 67 points to their opposition.
Laurentian (1-3) was narrowly defeated by Lakehead (62-60) back in early October, and will be a tough match up on the second night of the road trip. They have three players averaging close to double digit points totals per game, led by Danielle Harris at 9.5 ppg.
Coach Jon Kreiner stated, “Algoma and Laurentian will be a long road trip. This is the first time we will do the Northern tour and the second time we play both teams. The games were closely contested the first time around and we expect that playing in their gyms will be tough. The northern communities always get behind their teams so we need to be ready for hostile environments. Both teams are playing tough defence and play with an edge. We will need to stay calm, focused and disciplined.”
Lakehead Thunderwolves Men’s Team
The men’s team is looking to improve on their record against an Algoma team (2-2) that they defeated 79-54 in the pre-season. That being said, the T-Birds are improving steadily, having tasted OUA victory against Waterloo and Brock already this season. They’re led by Reynaldo Carnakie who averages 105. points and 5.8 rebounds per game.
The Laurentian Voyageurs (4-0) have steadily improved under coach Shawn Swords, and are currently ranked #10 in the country. Junior guard Alex Ratte is among the scoring elite in the CIS with 21.8 points per game, along with Nelson Yengue with 18.0 ppg and 6.2 rebounds per contest. As a team the Voyageurs shoot 49.2% from the field, third best in the CIS.
Coach Matt Erdman shares, “Algoma has been playing very well and are a much different team than what we saw in the pre-season. Laurentian has got off to a great start and are well deserved of their Top 10 ranking. We’ll need 40 minutes of consistent game plan focus both nights in order to have a chance to win. Hopefully, we grew up a bit last weekend and learned some valuable lesson
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