THUNDER BAY – SPORTS – The women’s basketball team was able to close out their game on Friday against the Winnipeg Wesmen, and despite not scoring in the final four-and-a-half minutes, prevailed 61-55.
Gillian Lavoie continued her impressive play in the paint, pulling down 13 rebounds (7 offensive) in Friday’s win. Starting sophomore point guard Jerika Baldin had an impressive game as well, scoring 8 points with 5 assists and 5 rebounds.
Lakehead led 37-25 at the half.
Cassandra Soulias hit a three-pointer to stretch Lakehead’s lead to 61-47, the largest of the game, with under 5 minutes to play.
“We played very well for 35 minutes,” said coach Jon Kreiner. ” I was happy with our first half execution ad defense. Winnipeg’s second half zone caused us some difficulties but we stayed strong on D. Gillian pulled down a lot of boards for us and Jerika had her best to date as a Thunderwolf.”
Bridget O’Reilly was the team’s leading scorer with 16 points and Katelyn Zen was next with 11 points.
Lakehead did a goos job on Winnipeg’s go-to scorer, Megan Noonan, who was limited to 6 points on 2-of-12 shooting. 5th year Renetha Burton led the Wesmen with 12 points and 9 rebounds.
Coach Kreiner added, “As a young team we need to learn how to close games and I don’t think we made great decisions down the stretch. Good defense will guard against that some times, but we still need to improve our end of game management.”
The women’s next game is tomorrow against the host Manitoba Bisons at 2:00pm Central Time. Webcast is available via CanadaWest.tv on a pay-per-view basis.
