Harvey helps Wolves ground Gryphons

With Tasia McKenna struggling to find her groove, and Shannon Vellinga being rested early on to keep her out of foul trouble, the Lakehead Thunderwolves needed someone to step up on Friday night.

Fourth-year guard Georgia Harvey was only too willing to oblige.

Harvey scored a game-high 16 points and chipped in eight assists, leading the Wolves to a 67-57 win over the visiting Guelph Gryphons at the Thunderdome.

Lakehead coach Jon Kreiner called the Winnipeg native the difference in the tightly contested match, which went back and forth until the Wolves began to pull away with four minutes to play. Harvey had five points down the stretch.

“If it wasn’t for Georgia, we would have lost the game tonight, really,” Kreiner said. “She really put our team on her back and made things happen. Tasia was struggling tonight, but Georgia, instead of just settling for the outside shot, took it to the hole a little bit, got it to the free-throw line. She had eight assists and two turnovers tonight, and led our team in that category.”

Harvey, who was averaging just seven points a night entering the contest, has demonstrated a vast improvement in her play this season, due in part to more playing time. No longer is she playing in the shadow of someone like all-star Debra Sandberg, who ruled the guard position at LU for Harvey’s first two seasons, with McKenna eating up the majority of the rest of the back court minutes.

Still, it’s not personal numbers that motivate the 21-year-old.

“That’s not what’s important to me. What’s important to me is our team being successful, and I think we have such a good team this year, more so than any year, that on any given night that anyone can step up and play well,” Harvey said. “Tonight it was me, but tomorrow it could be someone else. It’s a good thing because we need that from everybody.”

The Wolves (8-5) certainly didn’t make it easy on themselves, she added.

After going on a 10-1 run, including seven points from Harvey,  to finish the first quarter  with a 17-8 lead over the last place Gryphons (2-11), Lakehead appeared to have forgotten the fundamentals and began handing the ball back to their opponent time and time again, seemingly on every trip down the court.

All told the Wolves made 24 turnovers on the night, compared to 15 by Guelph, a stat that kept the game close through three quarters, when Lakehead nursed a one-point lead.

“I guess we just playing tough and kept giving it to them and working hard and in the end, even though we had more than them, we just outworked them I guess,” Harvey said.

It was too many turnovers for Kreiner, acknowledging they kept the Gryphons in the contest.
“For a team that doesn’t score a lot of points, they got most of their points tonight off of turnovers,” he said.

Lakehead took a 27-25 lead into the third quarter, but were attacked effectively after the half, hurt especially by a pair of treys off the hands of Guelph’s Alex Yallin, who pulled the Gryhons to within one late in the period and then later gave them the lead, a 45-44 advantage.

Three times in the fourth the Gryphons clawed back to find even ground with the Wolves, but each time the Thunderwolves had an answer.

Jasmine Douglas had 15 points to pace Guelph. Lindsay Druery had 15 points and 11 boards for the Wolves, who take on the same Gryphons on Saturday night.