WATERLOO – The Men’s Thunderwolves basketball team was able to scrape out a win in Waterloo, winning 65-58 Saturday evening. Lakehead led 50-45 heading into the 4th quarter, and managed to finish stronger than they had done in Friday night’s loss.
Jamie Searle came up with another big performance, hitting 6 threes and finishing with a total of 24 points and 5 rebounds. Venzal Russel was next with 13 points. Yoosrie Salhia wasn’t the usual rebounding force Thunderwolf fans are accustomed to, only grabbing 4, but he made up for it with a game-high 5 assists. Most of LU’s most important plays didn’t show up on the stat sheet, as Andrew Hackner came in to play a season-high 26 minutes of tough defense against Tim Rossy, the Warrior who had scored 26 points the night earlier. Rossy finished with 4 on Saturday. Waterloo’s top scorer, Cam McIntyre was draped by LU defenders all weekend, only scoring 7 total points (5 tonight), after going into the weekend averaging close to 20 PPG.
Lakehead led 60-54 with 2:46 remaining, and kept their guards up to the end, as Venzal Russell came up with a critical steal with less than 2 minutes left which he took in for an uncontested layup. Greg Carter followed that up by digging a steal from Wayne Bridge on a post up with 30 seconds remaining.
Happy to get a road win on the second night, LU Coach Scott Morrison expressed his thoughts about his Thunderwolves. “I was very proud of our guys for battling hard tonight over 40 minutes. Waterloo is a strong offensive team and clogged the paint well on the defensive end. It was a big win for us as we were short-handed and did not play our best but toughed out a win.”
Lakehead will next turn it’s focus to their home games versus the Brock Badgers Feb 11-12