A little shooting practice is probably in order for the Lakehead Thunderwolves women’s basketball squad.
The Wolves, making their C.J. Sanders Fieldhouse 2011-12 debut on Friday night, managed to hit just 22 of 91 shots from the field and fell 66-58 to the visiting Winnipeg Wesmen.
LU forward Ayse Kalkan, one of the few bright spots shooting for a Wolves team three games into an ambitious 16-game preseason schedule, said it was mostly mental.
“Our minds were definitely not in the game and I think that we were kind of playing selfish,” said the junior guard, who contributed a dozen points and four rebounds on the night.
“But our intensity picked up throughout the game and we started to get back into it. I think we definitely need to pick it up on the offensive side and move the ball around and get it into our post Lindsay Druery more.”
Coach Jon Kreiner agreed wholeheartedly, pointing to his team’s inability to find the net for most of the night.
Ever the optimist, he was impressed with most of the rest of their game, however.
“I told the girls we beat them in every single stats except free throws, and obviously shooting percentage as well,” Kreiner said. “We made more twos, made more threes, took more shots, got more rebounds, got more of everything, except fewer turnovers.
“Basically we played their tempo and took shots and every single moment we were out there we were talking about shot selection, moving the ball, getting the ball inside to Lindsay. That’s where we need to improve and that’s what these 16 games in the exhibition season are all about.”
Dreury certainly did her part for the Wolves, who fell to 1-2 in the preseason. The fifth-year veteran scored a team-best 14 points and hauled in 16 boards, including seven off the offensive glass. But there will be bumps along the way as the Wolves move on in the post-Tasia McKenna era, with point guards Katie Ulakovic and Carolyn Fragale, the MVP at Sault Ste. Marie’s Algoma University in 2010-11, learning the ropes.
Those struggles were evident on Friday night. Ulakovic hit just one of 19 shots, while Fragale, a Thunder Bay native, was 2-for-8, good for six points.
“(Katie) had a good weekend last weekend and she’ll bounce back tomorrow because she has the ability. She just has to get the experience and that was good experience for her today,” Kreiner said.
The Wesmen deserved a great deal of credit for the win. A team that finished 20-4 last season and was ranked as high as ninth in the nation, Winnipeg’s offense came out flying and built a 34-27 lead at the half.
A 9-1 run in the third, capped by a Stephanie Kleysen bucket with less than two minutes to go, stretched the lead to 13.
Kleysen led all scorers with 17 points, grabbed 14 boards and added five assists, a block and a steal on the night.
Try as they might, the Wolves simply couldn’t close the gap. Ashley Randall nailed a three midway through the fourth to pull LU’s deficit back to single digits, but the teams seemed to trade hoops the rest of the way as time ticked away.
The two teams will hook up again on Saturday night. Tip-off is 6 p.m.
