The Golden Hawks women’s basketball team came into the Saturday night game against the University of Toronto Varsity Blues hoping that their win against Guelph was a sign for things to come together after starting out the new year losing three straight.
They continued getting back to their winning ways this past weekend, as they came back from being down in the first quarter to turning out a strong win and as coach Paul Falco called it, “a sound game,” by the score of 73-57.
In the first quarter, both teams came out aggressively, playing at a fast pace with good ball movement. U of T proved to be a force, dominating the boards with 21 rebounds and making their money attacking the basket, getting to the free throw line and making Laurier settle for jumpers as the score was 21-13 in favour of the Blues.
In the second quarter, Laurier came out hot scoring seven points in the first two minutes of the quarter and at one point, bringing the U of T lead down to four. That’s when U of T turned it up led by Rahshida Atkinson and Charlotte Collyer going on a 9-2 run as they continued to attack the basket. Laurier would follow that answering with a 13-3 run to close out the last five minutes and end the half being down 36-35.
Going into the third quarter, both teams were quiet on offence as U of T only managed to score four points in the first four minutes. The Hawks scored the first points in the quarter by the 6:08 mark. The game was kept close as both teams traded baskets and finished the quarter with Laurier being down 51-49.
The fourth quarter is when the game turned around. It was kept close in the beginning with Keyira Parkes of U of T scoring their first six points of the quarter. But the momentum turned once Laurier’s Rachel Woodburn scored five points to start them off.
Kaitlyn Schenck then keyed a 9-4 run to give Laurier the lead. From that point on, Laurier was able to hold onto their lead, due to the Blues’ inability to make free throws, at one point, missing five of six attempts that would have given them the lead. The Hawks were able to ice the game on free throws and took the win at 74-67.
Laurier Score – Men’s Basketball – 2017-01-21: Laurier: 91 Toronto: 80 https://t.co/vQuKA0j7Ba #WeAreHAWKS
— Laurier Golden Hawks (@WLUAthletics) January 21, 2017
The biggest factor in this game was Laurier’s ability to turn it up at the right time and play with the urgency that’s got them in the playoff race.
“It was definitely a good sign for us because lately, we haven’t had too many tight games down the stretch, so that was good sort of practice for us in terms of how we’re going to execute in the fourth quarter, get stops and rebounds and we’re going to execute our offence,” Falco said.
Laurier’s getting healthy at the right time as they continue to get closer to the playoffs and they appear to be getting their rhythm back.
“You’re gonna need as many people going as you can because we got lots of tough games ahead of us and the more weapons we have, the more people contributing, the better we’ll be,” Falco said.
“Coming off of Christmas, we had a rough start there but we got our mojo back a little bit in the Guelph game and especially getting Nicole [Morrison] back helps as well. We played a sound game against Waterloo and followed up with a tough game against U of T.”
Up next for the Golden Hawks, they will play Waterloo on Jan. 28 at the University of Waterloo.