One-and-done

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

At the CIS national men’s basketball championship, all it means is a ticket to the consolation round. That’s just what a slow start on Friday earned the Lakehead Thunderwolves, who fell 84-72 to the fifth-seeded Trinity Western Spartans, dashing any hopes of winning their first-ever national title.

LU guard Jamie Searle said the Wolves, who were down 20-6 after the opening quarter, simply forgot how to play their signature defensive game, the style of play that led them to Halifax, when they hit the Metro Centre floor.

“We didn’t come to play our defensive style,” said Searle, whose team will have to settle for a shot at fifth place, starting tomorrow afternoon against Wolfville, N.S.’s Acadia Axemen.

“We didn’t rotate, we didn’t help and it doesn’t matter how big they were. They could have been all seven-footers, if we would have rotated and helped we would have taken a lot of those points away. We didn’t do that tonight. We stepped away from our defensive game plan and it killed us.”

The Wolves were also a little shy in the shot department, hitting just 10 of 28 shots in the first half.

Searle, in his final season with Lakehead, said he’s not sure what to attribute the Friday’s slow start.

“I don’t know if it was nerves or not. We’ve been here before. We’re used to this. We’ve had cameras on us, we’ve had this kind of atmosphere. It shouldn’t have been nerves. The shots just didn’t seem to fall down. I’m not sure what it was,” said Searle, who finished with 15 points, only two of which came before the break.

LU coach Scott Morrison said he talked to his players all week about using their experience from last year – a quarterfinal loss to UBC – to their benefit, but it never materialized.

“We wanted to try to get an advantage on these guys to start the game. But I don’t think we did. I don’t think we accomplished that goal. In the first quarter it was easy to say they were bigger than us and they beat us up, but in reality we didn’t rotate very well in our weak side defence, we misplayed some screens and we didn’t really lay it on the line rebounding-wise like we did last Saturday,” Morrison said.

Not helping matters were Trinity Western’s twin towers, all-Canadian Jacob Doerksen and Kyle Coston,  who scored 20 points apiece also combined for 20 rebounds.

A fast start has been the Spartans modus operandi all season long, said Doerksen, the 2008 CIS player of the year.

“That’s been our thing this year, coming out strong and kind of using that lead the rest of the game. Which I mean is not great for later on in the game, but it kind of puts teams back on their heels for the start.”

The Wolves, down 14 after one, pulled to within nine points in the second quarter, but turnovers in the final minute of play allowed the Spartans to re-establish a double-digit, 39-28 advantage at the break.

Lakehead pulled to within eight when Greg Carter nailed a three-pointer midway through the period, and again after a Doerksen finger-roll when Venzal Russell stole the ball and raced all the way down the court for the easy bucket.

But Russell, a Detroit import, missed the free throw awarded on the play and when Morrison was called for a technical LU found themselves trailing by 15, a deficit that would grow by two at the end of three.

The two sides traded baskets to start the fourth, then the Wolves began their comeback in earnest, firing at will from beyond the arc.

Carter buried a three to cut the lead to 11 at 62-51, but the Spartans had the answer, getting hoops from Calvin Westbrook and Tomer Jackson. Jackson then buried a three to put the game out of reach at 71-53.

Or so it seemed.

Russell scored a pair of buckets, then made a steal and was fouled, completing the three-point play to singlehandedly pull the Wolves to within a dozen.

Then Ryan Thomson, who had four three-pointers to lead LU with 18, and Searle went to work, nailing three triples to key 9-2 run and bring Lakehead to within six at 75-69.

But after Trinity Western’s Tristian Smith missed a pair of free throws, Doerksen grabbed a huge offensive board, ultimately sending Coston to the line, where he hit two to restore an eight-point lead and end the comeback hopes.

The Spartans will take on the UBC Thunderbirds in one of two Saturday semifinals. The Thunderbirds beat Acadia 96-77. Carleton will take on Saskatchewan in the other semifinal.