Men’s basketball team completes weekend sweep, collects pair of wins against ranked Western

Lakehead’s men’s basketball team beat Western by a score of 79-73, completing the season sweep against the Mustangs. Lakehead now sits at 6-12, riding a three-game win streak. Western is now 7-3 in their last ten games, and 12-6 overall. All of Western’s other losses have come against nationally-ranked opponents, with Laurier likely to move into the top ten this coming week.

“It was a good weekend for our group of guys,” Thunderwolves head coach Ryan Thomson said. “I thought that down the stretch we did a good job of keeping our composure and keeping with what we had been preaching all week: execute defensively, take good shots, and put pressure on the rim.”

In the rematch of Friday’s nail-biter game, the two teams battled for 40 minutes, with neither team creating much separation in scoring. Western finished the first quarter with a 23-22 lead and took a 37-34 lead into the half. Lakehead took over in the second half, however. The Thunderwolves controlled most of the third quarter, and entered the final frame up 53-51. The fourth quarter saw each team grasp at leads, with the two squads exchanging buckets until a pair of timely three-point makes from Jared Kreiner put the Mustangs off-balance.

Isaiah Traylor then completed a sequence in which he hit a deep three from the top that saw Western call timeout. When play resumed, he hit a second three from the same spot. On the Mustangs following possession he stole the ball and raced down court for a tomahawk slam that forced another Western timeout, the second in less than 30 seconds.

Lakehead was led by a coalition of contributors, with Traylor putting up 17 points and 4 rebounds, Lock Lam scoring 9, grabbing 8 rebounds, and getting 3 big blocks, and Nick Burke dropping 16 points to go with 10 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block. Davarius Wright chipped in 11 points, picked up 9 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 blocks, and 3 steals off the bench.

The two squads finished with similar shooting percentages and rebounding numbers, but Lakehead forced Western into 4 additional turnovers, blocked 5 more shots (6 total), and had 7 more steals (11 total).

“Our focus is now on Waterloo,” Thomson said. “They play hard and have a talented group of guys who can attack the rim, particularly Petrov and Hodzic.”

Lakehead travels to Waterloo to face the Warriors on February 1st and 2nd,

Basketball games are available via webcast courtesy of OUA.tv