Robichaud trey earns Thunderwolves opening win

It wasn’t a pretty win.

But the Lakehead Thunderwolves did ultimately claim victory Friday night, scoring a 54-51 triumph over the visiting Queen’s Golden Gaels, landing in the win column in their 2014-15 season opener at the Thunderdome.

Defensively, LU coach Manny Furtado was satisfied.

But he’s well aware going forward, against tougher competition, hitting just 17 of 62 shots from the field won’t earn his squad many more wins.

It’s why he spent 15 minutes following Friday’s game loudly dissecting what he liked and – more loudly – didn’t like about their opening performance.

“We had some open looks early and it was kind of an adjustment period for us,” Furtado said, earning his first official win behind the Lakehead bench.

“Regular season is a different beast right now. The physicality, what you can get away with is a little bit different. I don’t know if the guys were a little bit nervous or whatnot. We competed, we worked hard, but I just think we had some crucial mistakes at big times when the good teams don’t do that.”

Talk about a slow start.

It took Dan Thompson three-and-a-half minutes to finally give Queen’s an early 2-0 lead and 70 seconds more before Anthony McIntosh managed to get the Thunderwolves on the board, hitting one of two free throws to cut the Golden Gaels lead to 4-1.

By quarter’s end the two sides were knotted 10-10, and there was little more offensive activity in the second, when the Wolves pulled ahead by one, thanks in part to Ryan Doornick’s late three-pointer that pushed LU in front by three.

It was the third quarter that proved decisive for the home side.

The two teams traded buckets, but then baskets by Addy Ogunye, Anthony McIntosh and a pair by Doornick earned the Wolves a 46-37 lead after 30 minutes.

Then shots stopped falling for Lakehead and the Golden Gaels found their range, starting with Mike Shoeveller’s three that made it a one-point game, 47-46.

After Dwayne Harvey went coast to coast to restore a five-point LU lead, Greg Faulkner, who led all scorers with 15 points, completed a three-point bucket and foul to draw Queen’s within two, then hit a fadeaway jumper to tie the score at 51.

Cue Alex Robichaud, who struggled shooting most of the night, missing his first seven shots from the field. But he made up for it on his eighth, a long-range bomb that proved to be the decisive basket. The Golden Gaels had a pair of looks at three-pointers in the final 40 seconds, but couldn’t find the range and started the season 0-1.

“We’ve got to learn from it,” Furtado said. “If you look at our post, we didn’t get enough out of our posts. Our shooting percentage from the free-throw line is terrible …  We’ve just got to do a better job of making right plays and right decisions and taking the shots we get.”

Lakehead, who hosts York on Saturday, finished just 16-for-30 from the charity stripe and hit just 4-16 three-point tries, three by Doornick.