TORONTO, ON - Despite trailing throughout the night, the Mustangs were able to slice the Toronto Metropolitan lead down to 11 as the game came to a close on Saturday night, narrowly taking the loss, 90-79.
 

With both these teams ranking third in their respective divisions while coming off losses in the 24 hours earlier, the Mustangs and TMU Bold were ready to fight for tonight's win. 
 

In the opening minute of play the Western had scored 2 of the opening three baskets, going up 5-2, and they continued to hold the lead until there were only six minutes remaining, when the Bold pulled up their first lead of the night, and didn't give it up for the rest of the night. 
 

The Mustangs were once again falling back to a zone defense, allowing them to force TMU out of the paint, and drive more shots from a distance. Unfortunately for Western, the Bold were shooting much more consistently than the Stangs from the arc, allowing them to continue expanding their lead. 
 

Although Western were doing their best to keep control with a zone, TMU also kept driving in through the outside lanes and getting past their player allowing them more opportunities on each possession. 
 

Once the Bold started to pick up momentum it was hard to catch them. Western hadn't scored since the opening minutes of the quarter until Jerric Palma broke TMU's 17-point run.
 

As the first quarter ended, the Mustangs' struggling offense was given no break from TMU's overwhelming defense, and Western was out-scored 30-14. 
 

The second quarter portrayed much of the same, with Toronto Met continuing to extend their lead while breaking through the Mustangs on defense. 
 

It was a rough start for Western, who were not given any opportunity for extra possessions in the first quarter, as TMU had no turnovers in the first 10, a fact that quickly changed in this second quarter. 
 

This quarter slowed down much quicker in scoring, as both teams have scored less than six points in the first three minutes. 
 

Western had kept this quarter much more in control, only allowing the Bold to out-score them by single digits with a few minutes remaining in the first half. 
 

Throughout the bottom half of the quarter, the Mustangs were playing with much better intensity, and stronger defense, which allowed them to slash the TMU lead down to single digits. With four minutes remaining in the quarter, the Mustangs had out-scored their opponent by four points. 
 

Despite starting out slow tonight, once Western began to speed up, it was hard to shut them down. They were quick to heat up heading into half time, rattling the Bold who had become very comfortable with their lead at this stage. 
 

Unfortunately, while the Mustangs were effective at forcing TMU to shoot from further out, the Bold were incredibly accurate at shooting from beyond the arc, which allowed them to stretch back out to a 20-point lead. 
 

Although they improved exponentially this quarter, the Mustangs entered the second half of the game down 51-35.
 

Throughout the third quarter, the Mustangs were doing a better job of causing turnovers against the Bold, but were struggling to make the most of them, often failing to score off the possessions. 
 

While they did seem to slightly struggle defensively to begin, the Mustangs went on a 5-0 run to open the second half, and started to play much stronger than in the previous two quarters. 
 

This was just the beginning as the Mustangs were scoring powerfully throughout this third quarter, out-scoring TMU by 12 points midway through the quarter. 
 

Western was also incredibly strong on the drive up to this point in the night, continuing to score the majority of their points in the paint - 30 of 49. 
 

TMU was getting too comfortable with their lead, and they lost momentum, which allowed the Mustangs to charge forward and pull the game back within two possessions with half the quarter remaining. 
 

Western was effectively crashing the boards, moving the ball down the court, and were consistently positioning someone down low fighting for the rebound on every one of their shots. 
 

With 2:30 minutes remaining the gap widened back up to 10 points, with the Bold beginning to warm back up as the Mustangs were closing the margin. 
 

This third quarter was the only one where the Mustangs out-scored the Bold overall, after tying them in both the second, and fourth quarters at 21 and 19 points respectively. 
 

With seconds remaining, the margin extended back to 11 points, the largest since the opening minute of this quarter, and when the game headed into the final 10 minutes, the Mustangs were still trailing, 71-60.
 

As the fourth quarter commenced, the Mustangs fought incredibly hard to try to snatch the lead. After the opening minutes, Western was still down, this time by 14 points despite continuing to fight incredibly hard throughout the night. 
 

Aryan Sharma was on fire throughout the second half, and had put up 22 points by the opening minutes of the fourth, overtaking Palma as the team's top scorer, and Noah Otshudi literally threw himself across the court trying to regain possession of the ball.  
 

The Bold had racked up 15 turnovers so far in the night, which aided the Mustangs in maintaining the score, as they had managed to keep the points scored by each team in the final quarter level. 
 

With 44 seconds remaining, TMU had been able to extend their lead back out to 11, and the game ended with Western heading back to London with another road loss at 90-79. 
 

The Mustangs finally return home to Alumni Hall this Wednesday, February 1st at 8 pm to take on the McMaster Marauders. Fans can purchase tickets to the game at WesternMustangs.ca/tickets.