Laurier’s struggles continue as they drop back to back games

Photo by Sadman Rahman

Coming off of a 69-49 loss at Western Friday night in their first game of 2018, the Wilfrid Laurier University women’s basketball team were looking to bounce back in a matchup against the Windsor Lancers the next day. Ultimately, the team fell short, posting a final score of 71-60.

The Hawks held their own in the first few minutes of the first quarter, managing to start out with a 10-7 lead. What happened next changed the dynamic of the game; the Lancers went on a 15-0 run in the last five minutes to close out the quarter.

In the second quarter, the Golden Hawks managed to pick up their play, especially on offense. Finding a little bit of rhythm, they scored 19 points in the quarter, nearly doubling their total from the first. Unfortunately for the Hawks, they also gave up 19 points to the Lancers. Going into halftime, the Lancers were still up 12 with a score of 41.

Throughout the third quarter, the Lancers progressively increased their lead, at one point being up 22 points. With the game having gone out of hand, it seemed like Windsor had managed to put the nail in the coffin.

Regardless of Nicole Morrison’s big night, scoring 25 points — 14 in the second half alone  Windsor proved too much on that night, winning the rebounding battle 47-25 and 13-2 on second chance points. Lancer forward, Emily Prevost also played a big part in the win, putting up 30 points and 12 rebounds.

In the final frame, Laurier found their rhythm and a comeback attempt was made. With less than a minute left, the Hawks cut the lead down to seven from 19. With less than 30 seconds left  after being forced to foul — the lead only increased, and the Lancers closed the game out with a score of 71-60.

“Easily, it was our energy,” head coach Paul Falco said, looking make sense of the back-to-back losses.

“Yesterday, for some reason we had very little energy. I thought today, as the game went on we got a little more comfortable with their physical style,” he said.

“I thought we stepped up and matched their physicality and we played extremely hard.”

Ultimately, Falco noted that the team was not able to capitalize on some of the opportunities they needed in order to excel against a team like Windsor.

Windsor’s huge first and third quarters played a big part in their insurmountable lead as Laurier did not pull ahead once after Windsor tied it at 10-10 in the first quarter.

Regardless of Nicole Morrison’s big night, scoring 25 points — 14 in the second half alone  Windsor proved too much on that night, winning the rebounding battle 47-25 and 13-2 on second chance points. Lancer forward, Emily Prevost also played a big part in the win, putting up 30 points and 12 rebounds.

“Defense is always something we need to really stress and really work on in order for us to win,” Morrison said of the back-to-back losses.

“I think offensively, we play well as a team but defensively we’re just trying to get our bearings and kind of learn how to play hard for the entire 24-second shot clock.”

Up next for the Golden Hawks will be a matchup against the Guelph Gryphons on Jan. 10 in Guelph.

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