Wolves whipped

The Lakehead Thunderwolves showed Saturday night they weren't quite ready for prime time just yet.

The women's basketball team managed to stay close for a quarter in front of a packed Thunderdome crowd, but the No. 4 Carleton Ravens (4-2) proved a little too powerful, building a 12-point lead at the half and pulling away in the third to secure a runaway 65-39 win.

It was the second loss in two nights for the Pack, who opened the season with three wins
in their first four games, including an upset of No. 8 Toronto.

LU coach Jon Kreiner said the rout shows his young squad still has plenty to work on if it wants to find its way into the OUA elite.

"We definitely got rattled in the second quarter and it carried itself through," Kreiner said. "I thought we started off real well against a very good team, and I'm very happy with the way things went for the first nine minutes of the first quarter.

"When we get rattled, we get down, we get frustrated and that's when Carleton does a real good job. They're one of the best offensive rebounding team and one of the shortest teams, and we struggled tonight rebounding the ball."

His biggest disappointment was the fact the Wolves did a great job keeping the first shot out of the net, but their inability to retake possession of the ball gave the Ravens too many second chances.

"Tonight, this was our game. They've been struggling and we played great in the first quarter. When you look at the stats, they only shot 32 per cent from the floor. But when you take a look at how many offensive rebounds they got, 18, that means our first 15 seconds of defence was great," Kreiner said.

LU (3-3) kept the Ravens within two points after the opening quarter, trailing 14-12, thanks to eight points from captain Lindsay Druery.
But Carleton began to make its break in the second, and made mincemeat of the Wolves in the third, going on a 21-1 run to end any thoughts of an LU comeback.

The hot streak was fuelled by Carleton's senior forward Kendall MacLeod, who scored seven straight, the only LU point coming off a Katie Ulakovic free throw.

In fact, other than a Lindsay Druery bucket to begin the second half and a pair of Carolyn Fragale free throws, it was the only point Lakehead could muster in a quarter that saw them manhandled 21-5.

"We were having a rough go right now with sticking to our game plan and listening to what coach has to tell us," said Ulakovic, the former Hammarskjold star who finished with eight points, second to Druery's 10.

"Basically we weren't rebounding and getting to the boards. That's what killed us. From then on they had their runs and took it from there."

Krista Van Slingerland and MacLeod paced the Ravens attack, putting up 13 points apiece.