When March rolls around, motivation isn’t hard to come by in a Mustangs locker room.
“The season is over if you lose — that’s all the motivation we should ever need,” Mustangs women’s basketball head coach Stephan Barrie said after watching his team cruise to an 84-58 victory over the Lakehead Thunderwolves on Saturday in the Ontario University Athletics West semifinal.
Despite that, the Mustangs did not need much provocation against road-weary Lakehead at Alumni Hall. The Thunderwolves never found their feet, shooting 37.5 per cent from the field and converting just four of their 23 three-point attempts.
“I would characterize our team today as unfocused,” Thunderwolves head coach Jon Kreiner said. “Western took us out of the game early. Kudos to them; they were waiting for us and they executed a lot better than we did today.”
The Mustangs dominated around the basket all afternoon, out-rebounding Windsor 39-24 and scoring 28 points in the paint. The Mustang bigs — Rebecca Moss, Lauren Parkes and Katelyn Leddy — were key contributors to the home team’s dominance down low, physically overwhelming the smaller Thunderwolves.
“We’ve been working over and over again in practice on boxing out down low,” Leddy said after the game. “It’s been a weakness of ours, so we’ve been working hard at it. It’s definitely a focus.”
The Mustangs are on a roll, having now won eight of their last nine games after dropping two straight in January. One of the primary reasons for the Mustangs success in the latter half of their season has been the strong contribution from players other than Amanda Anderson.
The fifth-year guard is second in OUA scoring and led the Mustangs in points in seven of the team’s first 10 games this season. But over the subsequent 11 games, Anderson has only outscored her teammates four times.
The Mustangs had five scorers in double digits on Saturday, paced by Leddy who fell just short of a double-double with 17 points and nine assists in 26 minutes of work.
“That’s what I see every day in practice, so I’m used to it,” Barrie said of his team’s new scoring-by-commission policy. “We have a lot of kids with a ton of offensive capabilities. When our kids play to their potential, that’s what our scores will look like.”
The Thunderwolves’ defensive strategy was clear — shut down Anderson and hope the rest of the Mustangs miss their shots.
They certainly accomplished the first goal — Anderson was held to just eight points and didn’t even take a shot until the second quarter — but not so much the second. The Mustangs shot 51.8 per cent from the field and converted on five of nine three point attempts.
“We have lots of people who can put numbers up for us — everyone can score,” Anderson said. “It’s a big part of our team. If other teams key on one player — they’re done. We can move the ball around and get open looks.”
Anderson — who recently took over second place in Mustangs all-time scoring — was more valuable to her team defensively, tasked with shutting down Lakehead point guard Tasia McKenna.
McKenna is the Thunderwolves’ leading scorer and ranks fifth in the OUA with 15.7 points per game. She torched Western for 21 points in an 84-51 thumping Lakehead handed the Mustangs just a week ago.
But the five-foot-five guard was frustrated by Anderson in the OUA semifinal, failing to record a single point despite leading the Thunderwolves with 34 minutes of play.
“Amanda was our best defensive player today — she was integral to shutting down Tasia,” Barrie said. “We knew we had to do that. It was the game plan all week.”
McKenna went 0 for 8 from the field — including five missed three-pointers — and came within one personal foul of fouling out of the game.
“Tasia got shut down today,” Krenier said of his fourth-year point guard. “Kudos to Western — they came out today and had a great game plan.”
With the win, the Mustangs advance to the OUA West finals Wednesday night against the Windsor Lancers, who have lost just once all year. The Lancers swept the two-game season series with the Mustangs, winning 94-81 and 85-75.
“Today was the best we played all year focus-wise,” Anderson said. “But we had a little let down at the end of the fourth quarter and if we do that against Windsor, they’re going to punish us.
“We’ll have to be focused and play solid defence [against Windsor.] If we have the same number of possessions as the other team we should do really well.”

Corey Stanford/Gazette