Comeback time

Life without Lacey McNulty is going to be a struggle.

But it won’t be impossible.

On Friday the Lakehead Thunderwolves showed they can be competitive without their first-year star, who will be on the sidelines for up to eight months after rupturing her Achilles tendon last weekend. McNulty was on hand at the Thunderdome for the team’s first game without her, cheering them on to a wild 76-72 comeback win over the visiting Brock Badgers, a game that saw the Wolves trailing by 18 four minutes into the third quarter.

LU forward Lindsay Druery, who had a double-double with 19 points and 11 rebounds, said McNulty won't be easily replaced.

“She plays a key role on our team and helps a lot both offensively and defensively. It just requires that different players step up each night, whether Tasia (McKenna) or Sarah (Gordon) or I have to score an extra few, or Ayse (Kalkan) or (Emily) Ross and everyone else comes out and scores, that’s what we’ve got to do,” Druery said.

McKenna, who had 21 to pull within 24 of the club’s all-time points mark, said it’s different without their 6-foot-2 pivot out there, but added their fallen star is still helping them despite being confined to a wheelchair for the time being.

“She’s one of our top scorers and rebounders and one of our top players. We had a talk after her injury and knew that everybody needed to step up a little bit more to make up for what we were losing without her,” Mckenna said.

“But she’s at our practices, she’s at our games giving us the energy we need on the bench, and I know she’ll be back next year ready to go.”

Watching the Wolves flounder through the first two quarters was not how McNulty, her leg wrapped in an oversized cast, wanted to spend her Friday night.

The Badgers opened a five-point lead after one quarter, then went on an 8-2 run, with six of the eight points going to Toronto’s Emily McKay, who led all scorers with 22.

Brock led by seven at the half.

Things didn’t get better in the third quarter, at least not until later on.

The Badgers stormed out of the gate with 10 straight points, upping their lead to 18 when Jessica Del Signore drained a three to make it 43-25.

At that point things had to change, McKenna said.

And it was about more than just the win over the Badgers, she added, noting they’ve dug holes recently that proved too big to crawl out from.

“You’ve seen us play in the last couple of games where we haven’t been able to get ourselves to the point of coming through to make that comeback. But we talked every timeout, every foul, every time the five of us that were on the floor we talked about defence.

“We needed to get stops, we needed to control (McKay) and (Whitney Gorges). Both of them had phenomenal game. Darcy (Zinck stepped up defensively, we came down with some offensive rebounds and then just knocked down foul shots at the end, which were key.”

The Wolves narrowed the gap to 11 after three, but trailed by as many as 14 in the fourth before settling down.

After the Badgers were called for a three-second lane violation Mckenna pulled the Wolves to within 10 with two of her 18 second-half points. Playing in her second-to-last home game in an LU uniform, with the Wolves still trailing by nine Sarah Gordon buried a three at the 5:40 mark. Then, after Gorges retaliated with a three of her own, Mckenna went to the line and sank a pair. The Wolves immediately forced a turnover and Druery was fouled going to the net and sank a pair of free throws.

All told the Wolves were 23-for-26 at the line in the second half.

After another Brock turnover McKenna calmly buried a three to make it 68-66 for the Badgers. Druery tied it from the line, then trailing by one, hit the charity stripe again and gave Lakehead its first lead since the first quarter.

With 24 seconds left Zinck stole the ball and got it to McKenna, who was immediately fouled and sent to the line once again.

Four foul shots later and the Wolves were up 74-69. Brock’s Devin Cunsic nailed a three to make it close, but with 3.1 seconds left time ran out on the Badgers (12-7).

“It’s tough to win when you don’t make free throws and don’t make lay-ups,” said Brock coach Brad Rootes. “I thought our execution was just really poor in the second half. We’re a young team that’s learning how to win. Being a young team we are going to make some mistakes and I thought today we really, really made some crucial mistakes.”

With the win the Wolves (13-6) took over sole possession of third place in the OUA, with three games to go in the OUA regular season. The Badgers are tied for fourth with Laurier, two points behind Lakehead.