Over the weekend, the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks’ women’s basketball team was looking to get to the .500 mark for the first time all season as they took on the Lakehead Thunderwolves in back-to-back games. However, after a loss on Friday and a win on Saturday, the Hawks found themselves in the same spot as the beginning of the weekend, two games below .500 at 5-7.
“It was definitely a tale of two games this weekend,” said head coach Paul Falco. “We obviously didn’t come out that well on Friday night, and really struggled defensively, but on Saturday we came out much more focused and stuck to the gameplan and put forth a really good all-around effort.”
In the first contest, the Hawks couldn’t contain the Thunderwolves’ offence and ended up surrendering 84 points, on their way to an 84-61 loss.
“[On Friday] we missed a lot of our assignments and really allowed Lakehead to do what they like to do and they took advantage of that and made their shots,” said Falco. “[Lakehead] has a couple good post players who are really effective when they get the ball down in the paint and we were just allowing them to get where they wanted.”
On Saturday, the purple and gold rebounded with a much stronger effort on offence and defence; and came away with a 75-51 victory.
“The biggest difference was our defensive assignments and taking away what they liked to do,” said Falco. “[On Saturday] we made them go to some options in their offence, which aren’t as efficient.”
The Hawks’ up-and-down performance this weekend is representative of the team’s biggest problem throughout the season – inconsistency. The team hasn’t been able to build upon strong performances and as a result, they’ve only managed to string together consecutive wins once all season.
“We definitely need to become more consistent,” said Falco. “In order to do that we have to come more focused for the full 40 minutes. Teams in this league will always hurt you when you slip up, but if we can stay as focused as we were on Saturday then I think we’ll have much more consistent success.”
The Golden Hawks’ quest for consistency will start once again when the McMaster Marauders visit the Laurier Athletic Complex tonight at 6 p.m.
“[McMaster] will be a good test for us,” said Falco. “They’re coming off a big win against the number two team in the country in Windsor so they’re obviously playing some really good basketball.”
