THUNDER BAY – Young teams are going to have off nights. It happens.
The important thing is to show improvement night in and night out. The Lakehead Thunderwolves can put a check in that column, despite dropping 70-50 decision on Saturday night at the CJ Sanders Fieldhouse to the No. 7-ranked Brock Badgers.
Playing without injured Kaylah Lewis, a worn-down Sofia Lluch, who sat out Friday's 17-point loss to the Badgers with flu-like conditions, and mostly minus first-year guard Ally Burke, who left 11 minutes in with a slight groin injury, it was a pretty inexperienced team that looked to redeem themselves and pick up its first win of the season.
It showed.
The Thunderwolves were hesitant to put up shots, tried to make passes that just weren't there and gave the Badgers far too many second chances that led to points.
Then there were the runs.
Brock reeled off streaks of 10, nine and seven as Lakehead struggled to find their range for a second straight night, hitting just 30.8 per cent from the field – though they did connect on eight three-pointers, finding some success moving the ball around the permiter.
“We're a young team and we're still learning,” said Lluch, who came off the bench three-and-a-half minutes into the contest and finished with a team-high 15, second only to Brock's Mackenzie Robinson, who had 21.
“We've just got to be patient and keep working hard. We keep getting the chances. The attitude is there, so that's good."
Wing Emily Pokrant, who put up six points and hauled in a pair of boards in 12 minutes off the bench, said an 0-4 start isn't ideal in a season shortened to just 16 games.
“I think that every game we're just going to keep growing and keep working on little things and just being a little bit better every game,” said Pokrant, a Winnipeg native in her first season with the Thunderwolves.
“We're going to get there.”
Lakehead dug an early six-point hole, but found life once Lluch was let loose. The third-year guard hit back-to-back treys, giving Lakehead an 11-10 advantage, their first and only lead of the night. But the Badgers went on a 10-0 run to close out the quarter and led 20-11 after one.
Brock maintained the lead through halftime and pulled away in the third, scoring 10 straight points after Eva Guillera opened the second half with a bucket, two of her eight points on the night.
The Badgers led by 15 after three and though Lakehead went on a 6-0 run to start the fourth, nine points was as close as they'd get.
There were too many unforced errors, said LU coach Jon Kreiner.
“Maybe look at the worst tennis game you've ever played where you kept hitting the ball into the net. It seemed like we did that. But at the same time, by far, I thought we battled so much better tonight. We got it to five points late in the third and it was just those runs,” Kreiner said.
“The experience hurt us in those key moments.”
Kreiner said next weekend's road trip to Laurier will go a long way to determining the team's playoff fa
Court shorts: Guard Tiffany Reynolds left the game with what appeared to be an ankle injury sustained late in the fourth, but Kreiner said it turned out to be a bad cramp.
