Gee-Gees gallop past Thunderwolves after slow start

There’s no room for error when taking on the No. 1-ranked Ottawa Gee-Gees.

Give them a second, third or fourth chance and they’ll make you pay, despite how closely you might think you’re playing them.

On Friday night, the Lakehead Thunderwolves discovered this detail first hand.

Leading the Gee-Gees by five points with more than half of the second quarter in the books at the Thunderdome, the Wolves suffered a break in concentration at the exact wrong time in their OUA men’s basketball match-up.

Within the blink of an eye the Gee-Gees pounced, running out the quarter on a 16-2 run.

They never looked back and cruised to an 89-61 win and remained unbeaten at 3-0. The Thunderwolves dropped a second straight and slid to 1-2.

“There’s little to no room for error, it’s pretty simple,” said second-year Lakehead coach Manny Furtado. “We were feeding off the crowd. It was great, we were up four or five and the next thing you know, it was turnover, layup, turnover, layup or a three.”

Without a timeout, there was little Furtado and company could do to stem the bleeding but watch and learn.

“I think we were really disciplined in the first half. We competed with them for about 18 minutes. We actually had the lead with two minutes left in the first half,” said first-year guard Brandon Persad, a Toronto native who took advantage of the green light given to him by Furtado, knocking down five three-pointers for a team-high 15-point night.

“We just kind of let up. Our intensity let up a little bit. We weren’t as disciplined on defence and started giving them open threes. Once a team like that gets going, it’s pretty hard to stop it.”

Lakehead scored first, Nick Burke dropping a trey for an early 3-0 lead. But Ottawa showed it meant business with a 13-0 run to go up 13-3.

The Wolves battled back to cut their deficit to one after the opening quarter, tying it early in the second on a Bacarius Dinkins bucket and took the lead again when Alex Robichaud fed Dinkins underneath the basket.

But after the Wolves turned it over on a shot-clock violation Caleb Agada slammed the Gee-Gees back in front for good.

“They just started picking us apart in the second half, putting us in chase mode and, to be honest, at times making us look silly,” Furtado said.

Mike L’Africain led the charge for Ottawa, scoring 25, 15 of which came in the opening 20 minutes. Caleb Aganda (15), Brandon Robinson (14) and Nathan McCarthy (13) also hit double figures for the visitors.

The Gee Gees were also monsters on the glass, outrebounding Lakehead 47-21, including 16 offensive boards.

The Thunderwolves task doesn’t get much easier on Saturday, when No. 2 Carleton lands in town. Tip-off is 8 p.m.