Dig deep enough of a hole in the OUA and it’s hard to climb back on top.
Slow starts will do that to a basketball team.
On Friday night the Lakehead Thunderwolves buried themselves in the opening half, made a spirited comeback in the third, but wound up falling short in the fourth, dropping their women’s hoops opener 65-53 to the visiting Guelph Gryphons at the Thunderdome.
Gillian Lavoie, who led all scorers with 14 points, said they tried not to pay attention to the halftime score, the Wolves trailing by 15, and just focused on reversing the outcome in the third and fourth quarters.
“The halftime score is the most insignificant one I feel, because it’s not the end,” said the Thunder Bay native, in her third season with the Thunderwolves.
“Knowing that we have 20 minutes to get back and take the lead is great to know. We just have to push them around like they did to us and battle their physicality.”
The Wolves outscored their division rivals 22-11 in the third.
But like it or not, the game was lost in the second quarter, which Lavoie blamed on a lackluster offence.
“We didn’t move the ball and it was mostly our turnovers and our mistakes that cost us the second quarter – and not making our shots and our free throws," Lavoie said.
Starting guard Jerika Baldin said despite the loss, they did learn a valuable lesson or two.
“We saw that we could come back, which is good to know for the future,” said Baldin, who finished with 10 points and seven assists on the night.
“But we can’t get in that slump because it’s hard to fight back. We just have to keep pushing. Don’t ever stop. It’s mostly our mistakes that cost us.”
Coach Jon Kreiner broke it down even further, saying the team wasn’t moving the ball side to side in the opening 20 minutes.
“And I think we played a little bit scared. We’re a young team that got a little bit of pushback and we really struggled with that.
Defensively he thought the team was locked in and did some good things, but Kreiner wants to see improvement in the offensive zone in Saturday’s rematch.
He’d also like to have a chance to stretch his bench a little further. His starters played the majority of the minutes and scored 49 of the Wolves 53 points.
“Overall we’ve been doing a good job, with different people scoring on different nights. We are going to be inconsistent at times because we don’t have natural scorers who can take over again. But when we move the basketball we get open looks,” Kreiner said.
“And there were times out there tonight where we had really nice open looks and they didn’t fall for us.”
Katherine MacTavish paced the Gryphons with 13 points and seven rebounds.
