THUNDER BAY – Sports – The Lakehead University Thunderwolves men’s basketball team took care of business on Friday evening, rolling to a 91-73 win over the Western Mustangs. Although the ‘Wolves established a 55-32 lead at halftime, the Mustangs showed rigor is battling back to bring it within 11 in the third quarter. That being said, they employed some very physical play to fight back against the Thunderwolves. Lakehead bent but never broke against the pressure from Western’s posts setting open court screens and tough guard play, led by Ryan Barbeau; the ‘Wolves re-established their lead thanks to the dead-eye shooting of Ryan Thomson.
With the game in hand and under two minutes remaining, things came to a head when Yoosrie Salhia and Charlie Drouin clashed underneath the Western basket following a hard Drouin foul on Salhia. Arms were tangled and shoves exchanged, as both teams scrummed under the basket. The officials did finally get control of the situation and Salhia and Drouin were assessed technical fouls.
Top scorers for Western were Ryan Barbeau with a game-high 24 (10-of-13 shooting) and Peter Scholtes with 19.
Lakehead’s balanced attack was led by Ryan Thomson with 23 and 4 assists, Yoosrie Salhia with 18, Venzal Russell with 12 points and 7 assists, and Thunder Bay’s very own Matt Schmidt with 10 points in 13 minutes of work.
Coach Scott Morrison:
“A great start was the key to the win tonight and much credit to Western for battling hard after their slow 1st quarter. We were fortunate to have shot well from the outside because Western won the battle of penetration tonight including two all-star calibre performances from Barbeau and Scholtes. I expect both teams to make some adjustments tonight and expect to see a 40 minute OUA West battle again tomorrow night. We are definetly going to have to do a better job making Scholtes catches tougher and keeping Barbeau outside of the paint on his dribble.”
The two teams rematch tomorrow evening at 8 pm.
Game coverage, as always, will be available on SSN Canada, www.ssncanada.ca, and CILU Radio, 102.7 FM and www.luradio.ca