THUNDER BAY – The Lakehead Thunderwolves didn’t get a point in the first 7:30 against the No. 8-ranked Ottawa Gee-Gees.
They only managed two points in the final 6:50.
In between, the winless women’s basketball team only put up another 29, falling 81-31 at the CJ Sanders Fieldhouse and dropping to 0-5 in OUA play this season.
The offence just isn’t clicking, said guard Ally Burke.
“Hopefully tomorrow night we can just finish those layups and everything will be a lot easier for us,” said Burke, who paced the T-Wolves attack with eight points, six of which came on the free-throw line.
As a team, Lakehead hit just 11-of-52 from the field, were out-rebounded 44-28 and turned the ball over 26 times, twice as many as Ottawa, a team that improved to 5-0 on the season.
“It’s tough when your shots are falling and you’re getting them, but that’s just something we have to work on.”
Lakehead’s offensive struggles showed early, as shot after shot failed to drop in the opening quarter, the Gee-Gees roaring out to a 10-0 lead, in a game they led wire-to-wire, before Lily Gruber-Schulz finally found the mesh with 2:30 to play in the opening period.
Ottawa carried the 10-point advantage into the second and doubled it by halftime, leading 40-20 at the break, in full control and looking to move to 5-0.
They had little to worry about in the final 20 minutes.
The Gee-Gees outscored LU by 13 in the third and 21-4 in the fourth, there 50-point margin of victory by far their most lopsided win of the early OUA campaign, having beaten York by 19 in their second game of 2022-23.
It was a tough outing, said interim coach Dave McCallum.
“We definitely have to be better. We thought we had a pretty good game plan against them tonight. Some shots didn’t fall early and then they played pretty well defensively and their pressure hurt us. We’ve got to get back to the drawing board and find some other ways to score.”
Brigitte Lefebvre-Okankwu, who didn’t even make the game-day program, led the Gee-Gees with 15 points, followed closely by Natsuki Szczukin, who closed with seven. Lefebvre-Okankwu also had 11 rebounds to complete the double-double, despite only playing 21 minutes, Ottawa’s coaching staff able to spread the playing time out because of the lopsided score.
Alexia Giroux had six for Lakehead, hitting a pair of three-pointers, while Julia Dunbar came off the bench to score five. Lakehead’s starters only combined for 18 points.
The T-Wolves dropped to 0-5, but will seek out win No. 1 on Saturday night at the C.J. Sanders Fieldhouse against the 1-4 Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks, who were idle on Friday night.
