LONDON, Ont. - Veteran forward Victoria Heine led the Western Mustangs women's basketball team with a double-double performance in the team's 73-54 loss to the Lakehead Thunderwolves on Friday evening in Alumni Hall.

"Our rotations have to be better and that's a sign of a communication issue. We need early, loud, and effective communication and I didn't see that tonight. We were a step behind – we're going to work on that tomorrow and we just have to do a better job of preparing better in practice," said Mustangs head coach Brian Cheng on what led to the lopsided affair.

With the loss, the Mustangs drop to a 7-6 record in the OUA West division, as they remain in fourth place. Lakehead's victory will earn them a 9-4 record, as they remain in second in the OUA West division.

Heine, who was asked to guard Lakehead's star forward Leashja Grant for the majority of the game, made her presence known with a 10 point and 16 rebound double-double, notching a block and a steal as well along the way.
It was a balanced scoring effort between the Mustangs starters, as Mackenzie Puklicz, Julia Curran, and Maddy Horst also put up 10 points each while Laura Graham led the team with 12 on the evening. Curran posted a double-double of her own, as she 10 rebounds as well in the contest.

"I couldn't be prouder of the kid. She's a very good player and she does a lot of good things for us. She's struggled with her shooting a bit this year for whatever reason, but throughout those struggles she just kept working, she kept on believing, she kept on having faith and perseverance, and just kept practicing," said Cheng on Graham's efficient shooting night from beyond the arc.

"I think that kind of shooting from Laura is sustainable. She's one of the hardest working players I know and she deserves to have shooting nights like tonight. I think she can keep this shooting up for sure," said Curran on her fellow third-year teammate Graham.

Lakehead spent the opening minutes of the contest trying to feed the ball down low to star-forward Leashja Grant, but the Heine's defensive play managed to keep Grant in check. However, both teams would find early success from the three-point line, a rarity for a pair of teams that have struggled to find consistency behind the arc. The fast break began to become the primary source of offence for the purple and white towards the end of the quarter, but production from the Thunderwolves role players would allow Lakehead to head into the second frame with a 24-12 advantage.

Western began the second quarter with a full-court press, but the Lakehead guards made quick work of the pressure, cutting through the Mustangs defence and leaving the purple and white scrambling to recover. However, the long-range shooting of Graham would keep the Mustangs in the game, breaking the Thunderwolves defence down from distance. However, the success from beyond the arc seemed to be contagious, as Lakehead began to knock down shots with regularity from deep to extend their lead and counter the Western attack. The Thunderwolves' ball movement would continue into halftime as they extended their lead to a 41-25 advantage heading into the half.

Both teams struggled to take care of the basketball to begin the second half, as turnovers plagued both teams early in the third. Western's shooting would once again keep the game relatively within reach midway through the quarter, but Lakehead would have an offensive answer at every turn. The defence of the Thunderwolves would quickly find its footing, forcing back-to-back shot clock violations from the purple and white, smothering shooters throughout the remainder of the quarter and disallowing a Western run and heading into the fourth with a 56-38 lead.

The fourth quarter proved to be much of the same, as the Lakehead scoring effort continued to press on while the Mustangs found themselves unable to put forth a sustainable run of their own, ultimately falling in a 73-54 loss.

"There's pros and cons to playing the same team in a back-to-back. Now we have some stuff to work on at shootaround tomorrow; we can focus on getting better on our coverages, but we'll for sure be tired so fatigue plays a role," said Curran on the team's chance to redeem themselves again Lakehead tomorrow night.

"Usually, the team that loses gets a chance to see what went wrong. We have some things to fix. Usually, the team that wins has to guess what the other side is going to change and adjust. I came from the Canada West where we played a lot of back-to-backs so I'm accustomed to that and Lakehead is too because all they do is play back-to-backs. We just need to be able to figure out our adjustments, implement them in a short matter of time, and execute," said Cheng, commenting on the process of playing in a back-to-back situation.

The Mustangs will be back in action tomorrow, January 13 for their second meeting of a back-to-back with the Thunderbirds. The game is scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m. and fans can catch the action live at OUA.tv.