O'Reilly, Murphy power Wolves to lopsided win over Nipissing

The Lakehead Thunderwolves tried their best to work the ball inside on Friday night.

When it wasn’t working, they turned to their perimeter game.

Led by the sharpshooting ways of Bridget O’Reilly and Thunder Bay’s own Maggie Murphy, the women’s basketball squad scored a convincing 86-55 win over the Nipissing Lakers at the Thunderdome, a second-straight home-court win for Lakehead (2-3).

O’Reilly was 5-of-9 from beyond the arc and finished with 21, while Murphy, a third-year transfer from the St. Thomas Tommies, hit 4-of-7 three-point attempts filling in for the injured Cassandra Soulias and wound up with 12.

Add in a 15-assist performance by guard Jerika Baldin and the Wolves were firing on all cylinders, at least after they got a bit of a sloppy start out of the way.

Murphy, who spent two years in New Brunswick with the Tommies before transferring into the nursing program at Lakehead, said she’s trying to take advantage of the increased minutes being allotted to her by coach Jon Kreiner.

“When I get a chance to get on the court I want to make the most of it and help my teammates as much as I can,” said Murphy, who hit back-to-back threes in the opening quarter, helping the Wolves pull ahead by four after 10 minutes.

“My roles is just to shoot the ball as much as I can and realistically it’s all my teammates that do all the work. Jerika played unreal at the point guard position, having 15 assists. They just get me the ball. I have the easy job, just knocking it down.”

Kreiner said it wasn’t necessarily his plan to have the third-year guard eat so many minutes, but he’s impressed at what she’s delivered.
“She’s making the most of that playing time,” said Kreiner, who coached Murphy through youth ball since she was in Grade 6.

“She’s a shooter. She’s a hard worker. She gives everything she has out there. She works harder than anybody on the team. There’s nobody who works harder off the court. And I’m just really proud of her because she’s gone from a player that’s not really a basketball player whatsoever to a player that’s contributing on a nightly basis.”

The Wolves took a nine-point lead into halftime and poured it on after the break, going on an 18-1 run to start the third, O’Reilly picking up five points during the stretch, Katelyn Zen and Katelyn Andrea putting up four apiece.

Lakehead outscored the Lakers 26-12 in the third and never gave Nipissing an opening to even contemplate starting some sort of comeback.

“I think we played with more energy than we have in past games and in the second half we definitely came out with  more energy than we did in the first,” O'Reilly said. “We kind of put them away in the first five minutes, which gave us a lot more energy for the rest of the game to keep us up and keep the momentum going.”

Claire Abbott and Rachel Jaworowicz led the Lakers with nine points each.

The Thunderwolves host Laurentian on Saturday night at 6 p.m.