Like the Boston Celtics, who rely on Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett to win basketball games, the Lakehead Thunderwolves women’s basketball team offers up its own Big Three for opposing teams to defend against.
Relatively speaking, the Wolves trio might provide more bang for the buck.
Lindsay Druery, Lacey McNulty and Tasia McKenna combined for 57 points, a whopping 80.2 per cent of the Wolves output Friday night, as Lakehead held off a revitalized York Lions squad in the second half and cruised to a 71-57 win at the Thunderdome.
Though coach Jon Kreiner would like to see his offense spread out a little more across the floor, it’s definitely a step in the right direction for a team that struggled somewhat against top competition in the pre-season, but has started OUA play strong and sits at 2-1 after Friday’s triumph.
“The biggest things is we didn’t get very much of anything from our posts in our first two games of the year. Lacey’s been our most consistent scorer. We really wanted to get our post game going. Tasia’s gonna score. I’d rather have this than not have anything from our two posts,” Kreiner said.
Druery, who scored 18 to McNulty’s 23, said the duo is finally starting to click, making crisp passes in the paint that are difficult to defend and almost always led to points on Friday.
“Yeah, I think that’s what coach envisioned. It took us awhile to get going in preseason, but tonight was kind of a showing of what exactly we can do this season,” said Druery, who also hauled in eight rebounds, matching McNulty’s total.
“We had to get used to each other’s style of play and where we go and what we do with the ball when we have it. It took a little longer than we anticipated, but we’ve got it going now.”
McNulty, who arrived in Thunder Bay via the NCAA – and nearly three-and-a-half years away from the game thanks to a series of concussions she says she’s put in her past – agreed with her teammate, but added she thinks the roughest patch of the transition is behind them.
“We were working together trying to get comfortable together, comfortable with the system. But now every game, every practice we’re getting better and we can only go up from here,” said McNulty, in her third year of eligibility.
Whatever they’ve discovered, it’s working.
Though the Wolves only managed to eke out a two-point advantage after one quarter, leading 18-16, they began to pull away in the second, outscoring the Lions for 42-32 halftime lead.
McKenna, who had 16 on the night, extended the lead to 16 with a three-pointer in the opening minutes of the third quarter, part of a 7-0 run that essentially put the game out of reach.
McNulty gave Lakehead a 20-point lead late in the third, beating a Lions press, and the Wolves took a 17-point lead into the final 10 minutes of play.
For their part, the Lions tried to make it interesting in the fourth, scoring eight straight points, including two buckets in a row from Brittany Szockyj, who led York with 18 points and five assists.
But with less than three minutes to go McKenna righted the ship, dropping a shot from beyond the arc to restore a double-digit LU lead.
York crept to within nine on Llyandra Kerr’s drive in side, but even after McNulty missed an easy lay-up, she made up for it, hitting a three that sealed the 0-3 Lions fate.
The Wolves will take on Laurentian (0-3) at the Thunderdome on Saturday night. Game time is 6 p.m.
