Recap The Court

Jacob Smith

The Laurentian Voyageurs women’s basketball team were left with a bitter taste in their mouth on Friday December 1st when they lost to the Nipissing Lakers, but their chance for vengeance sat 24 hours away. In the home-and-home series, Laurentian awaited the Lakers, and after a slow start, they powered their way to a 73-60 victory Saturday night to claim the tiebreaker in the series.

The slow start came by way of a lid on the hoop and denial of second chances by the Lakers. Nipissing came out to a early 14-4 lead and left Laurentian staggered trying to get themselves back into rhythm.

In their first matchup, Nipissing found a lot of success getting the ball inside and condensing the defence leaving opportunity for threes or finishes through contact. In their last meeting, Laurentian made sure to put a stop to that early, and much of it came by a lot more pressure and defensive presence around their point guard Taryn Gauthier. Not allowing her to get inside the paint and forcing her into traps or putting up off-balance floaters, Laurentian made Nipissing play through someone else, and put added presence around the rim to counter the timely offensive boards that Nipissing got in the first matchup.

After going down in the first quarter, Laurentian used their defence and transition to score 26 in the second and take a 30-29 lead at half. Now with momentum, Laurentian behind nine second quarter points from Melanie Cloutier and eight from Claudia Pellerin, had a game plan, and it was going to be about continuing to execute in the second half.

Laurentian kept up the pressure in the third, extending out to a double-digit lead due to a 25-12 quarter. The Voyageurs held Nipissing to 3/18 (16%) shooting in the third quarter while they shot 10/20 to continue their train of momentum into the fourth.

Nipissing found gaps to the rim in the fourth, and they started to cut back on the Voyageurs lead. Nine fourth quarter points from Gauthier through six free throws and a finish through contact at the rim powered Nipissing’s hopeful surge back but timely buckets from Laurentian and Molly Adams getting to the free throw line closed the door on the Lakers, securing Laurentian’s third win of the season.

Full box score here.