Preliminary round playoff game ends with 71-54 Lakehead win
THUNDER BAY – SPORTS – Jylisa Williams pulled the load once more, this time scoring 42 points en route to a 71-54 win over the Western Mustangs in the first round of OUA women’s basketball playoffs.
Lakehead looked like they were ready to put it on cruise control early on, running out to a 15-4 lead through 7 minutes of play. But after calling their second time-out, the Mustangs went on an 8-0 run of their own, and closed the quarter down 19-16 to the home side.
At halftime Lakehead was ahead 37-30.
Most of Lakehead’s offense came from its defense, creating turnovers and finishing at the other end with layups.
The third quarter saw Essa Jacobsen enter the game for the ‘Wolves, and she went to work in the paint, grabbing 10 rebounds and scoring 5 points in 14 minutes’ work to help put the Mustangs away.
Lakehead scored 23 points in the third quarter to Western’s 15, and would coast from there. Jylisa Williams finished with 42 points, 7 rebounds and 3 steals.
For Western, rookie Maddy Horst scored 13 points with 6 rebounds and 6 assists.
Coach Jon Kreiner said, “Western really battled with us tonight. We struggled to contain them and coach Cheng had a great game plan but we found our spots on offence and our ball movement improved as the game went on. Corina found Jylisa all night and Jylisa put on a great show in transition. Essa had a great second half on the boards for us. We are looking forward to our next challenge; Mac at Mac.”
Lakehead moves on to the next round of theOUA playoffs, and will face Central division rival McMaster on Saturday at 1:00pm in Hamilton.
