Huskies hammer Thunderwolves in Halifax

Lakehead’s first sampling this season of Atlantic University Sport competition wasn’t the tasty post-Christmas treat Jon Kreiner’s team was seeking.

The No. 4 Saint Mary’s Huskies started strong on Monday night at Halifax’s Homburg Centre, finished with a flourish and went on to trounce the visiting Thunderwolves 76-45 to open the Thunder Selects Holiday Classic.

“We let them get way too many offensive boards and we weren’t boxing out so they were getting second chances in the first half,” said Lakehead’s Bridget O’Reilly, who led the Wolves with 17 points, one of the few bright lights Monday on a team looking to forge its identity to start the OUA second half next month.

“That kind of put us down.”

From start to finish, the Huskies (5-1) dominated play, keeping the Thunderwolves out of the paint, where they’d hoped to establish some sort of presence against a much bigger Saint Mary’s squad.

Though the Wolves entered play at the eight-team tournament as defending champions, they knew they were in tough this time around, a combination of graduated stars and an unfortunate tournament draw that pitted them against one of the top women’s basketball teams in the country.

“It was probably in our head a little bit. They’re a good team. They’re ranked for a reason and they showed it out there. They hit shots and they were driving to the basket and getting those offensive rebounds.” O'Reilly said.

Kreiner wasn’t making excuses for the wire-to-wire loss.

But to be fair, his team was testing out a new defensive scheme and Kreiner was trying to get equal court time for all of his players, a slightly shorthanded roster with rookie guard Rachel Webber likely done for the season with a broken wrist and centre Essa Jacobsen still not quite ready to return from a back injury.

It was the inside game that let the Thunderwolves down most, Kreiner said.

“I could talk about our injuries a little bit,” Kreiner said, “but we’re trying to establish our post game. And I didn’t see it happen out there.”

The veteran coach, in his 13th season in Thunder Bay, said poor shot selection didn’t help matters.

Kreiner said the coaching staff wants the players to evaluate their shots on a one-to-four scale, with one being the worst and four the best – under the rim and uncontested.

A one is a shot that shouldn’t be taken.

“We had a lot of ones and twos tonight. We didn’t get a lot of good looks that give us a chance to get offensive rebounds,” he said.

“And that’s one of our strengths. We’re a very good offensive rebounding team and we usually get to the free-throw line and some open looks, but Bridget was really the only one tonight who hit anything from the outside. We didn’t really hit our open looks,” Kreiner said.

Bedford, N.S.’s Laura Langille led the host Huskies with 14 points, while Halifax’s Courtney Cain-Nordin chipped in 13 off the bench.

Amanda Miller collected seven for Lakehead, who trailed 24-7 after one quarter, but showed signs of life in the second and third, outscored just 33-30 in the middle two stanzas.

The Wolves will take on Carleton on Tuesday at 2 p.m. EST. The Ravens dropped a 66-63 decision to the University of Prince Edward Island Panthers. Acadia and Winnipeg also won on the tournament's opening day.