Saturday, February 25, 2012

'Wolves Beat Guelph; Advance to OUA Final Four

The Lakehead Thunderwolves overcame some shaky decision making and poor rebounding to outlast Guelph 93-70 in OUA 2nd round play-off action. Lakehead's team defense was key as it forced 22 Guelph turnovers which led to some transition baskets for Lakehead.

Guelph, playing their 2nd game of the week on the road battled admirably including Dan McCarthy who attempted a Willis Reed impression playing on 1 good leg and scoring 15 points and adding 6 rebounds. Adam Bering recorded a double-double for Guelph with 13 and 10 while Kareem Malcolm also had 19 and 6 rebounds.

Overall Guelph out-rebounded Lakehead 14-3 on the offensive glass and shot 18-24 from the FT line to Lakehead's 12-23.

Much like last week's regular season matchups, Lakehead was big in the 1st and 4th quarters (26-10 and 26-16 tonight) and that was the deciding factor in the end.

For Lakehead Venzal Russell had 25, 6 rebounds and 3 steals on 10-18 shooting. Ben Johnson shot 7-11 for 19, Ryan Thomson 5-11 for 13 and Greg Carter, battling serious flu symptons all week - sucked it up for 11 points 6 assist and 4 steals. Lakehead shot 9-20 from 3pt range.

Coach Morrison on Tonight's Game:
I did not think it was our best played game by any stretch - our decision making with the ball was shaky at times as was our rebounding. Guelph has had back to back road trips to Thunder Bay plus a wednesday game and still came in here and beat us 14-3 on the offensive glass. In play-offs its about winning, getting the job done and moving on. However for us to get the job done next Friday we will have to improve those two areas of the game immediately.

Coach Morrison on the Thunderdome Fans.
On behalf of the team I would like to thank our supportive and boisterous fans. We have the best atmosphere in the CIS and it has helped us go 15-1 at home this season. We could not have done it without our fans and we will need our Thunderwolf Nation to come out and support us next week in Waterloo at the Final Four.

No comments:

Post a Comment