THUNDER BAY – If only the Lakehead Thunderwolves had been able to find their shooting groove.
Lakehead put up 20 more shots than the visiting Guelph Gryphons at the CJ Sanders Fieldhouse on Saturday night, but hit five fewer than their opponent, falling 66-44, dropping their fourth straight decision to slip to 1-9 on the season – but remarkably still have a shot at the OUA women’s basketball post-season.
It was a frustrating night, said first-year guard Ally Birker, who led the Thunderwolves with 10 points, the lone player on the team to hit double figures.
“Well, I think it just shows that we could have competed with that team and made it close and won, but it just wasn’t our night. It’s encouraging for our future games, knowing we’re right there with these good teams,” said Burke, a native of Timmins, Ont., who like many of her teammates, is still trying to adjust to the university game.
“We just need to make our shots fall.”
The good news is all three teams the Thunderwolves are fighting for playoff positions with also happen to be the three teams they’ll be playing over the final three weeks of the regular seasons, starting with winless Algoma next weekend.
The playoffs start now, Burke said.
“We were just talking about how we have to pick up our intensity in practice and just the challenge that we have to get these wins – and we’re looking forward to it,” said Burke, averaging eight points a night and boasting the fourth-best free-throw percentage in the entire league.
Kreiner said if it weren’t for the poor shooting – the Wolves made just three of 17 in the opening quarter and 17 of 72 overall – it might have been a different outcome.
That’s what makes the game so frustrating, said Kreiner, in his 19th season at the Thunderwolves helm.
“We had 14 turnovers to their 27, so we did a better job there. We had 17 steasls to their 10. We out offensive rebounded them 16 to 10 and we had 72 shots to their 51. And (assistant coach) Dave (McCallum) tracked our quality shots, especially in the second half and we had only one-third of our shots that weren’t a shot quality of three or four, out of four,” Kreiner said.
“We had good looks. The problem is we didn’t want to shoot them sometimes.”
Lakehead only found itself down 13-9 after one, but the Gryphons went on an 11-0 run in the second and led by 10 at the half, a lead that grew to 14 after three.
Unlike Friday night, the home team didn’t have an answer for Guelph’s Burke Birchard, who put up a game-high 17 and hauled in 10 rebounds to record the double-double.
Tiffany Reynolds had nine for Lakehead, while Eva Guilera put up eight, grabbed eight boards and made four steals. Burke, Reynolds and Kaylah Lewis had three steals apiece.
The Gryphons improved to 5-3 and are fourth in the OUA West. Lakehead sits in eighth. The top six teams in each division make the playoffs.
