London, ON – A tale of two halves for the Mustangs saw them walk away with a 113-106 win over Windsor Saturday night.
In the first game for Western since coming back from the holiday break, the early drive was lacking as they were down 4 after the first quarter and then were outscored 40-28 in the second quarter.
"It was a crazy game that's for sure," said Mustangs Head Coach Brad Campbell "Probably one of our worst halves we've ever played in the first half tonight,"
There was a noticeable difference between the team that left the floor at half time and the group that returned for the second half.
"I think everyone on the planet knows what happened at halftime (Campbell said with a grin), there wasn't an x's & o's issues or a game plan issue, we just needed to play harder and weren't ready to play that first half, I told the group they needed to give a better effort and that's exactly what we did"
Jerric Palma lit it up beyond the arc in the third quarter with a trio of three-pointers to help pull the Mustangs within 7 points after the 3
rd quarter.
"After the first one went down I just really felt confident with letting the rest go and there wasn't much more to it, the guys kept getting me the ball and it was all about the confidence at that point," said Palma.
Western came out hot in the 4
th quarter with the first 7 points to pull themselves into a tie at 87-87. With just over 6 minutes remaining the Mustangs took their first lead of the game on a George Horn lay-up. Western continued their strong play throughout the remainder of the quarter but the game remained tight. Western would open up a 9 point advantage with just over 4 minutes left and never looked back.
Palma finished the game with a team high 33 points, his best point total of the season by a large margin (most points this season is 20).
"Beginning of the season we said as a group that we're a team and team first. It doesn't matter who goes off for 20 or 30 points each night, it's just about getting the win at the end of the day," said Palma.
The Mustangs were feeling an added level of confidence as the Lancer came into the game at 7-2 and now drop to 7-3, while the Mustangs move to 6-5.
"It's a total two-month sprint now and that win is big for us," said Campbell "If we're going to get some distance and make a run here in the second half we're going to need to beat some good teams and Windsor's a good team so I hope that brings us some confidence and continue to build."
The Mustangs are back on home court next Friday, January 13
th as they take on the Waterloo Warriors for an 8:00pm tip-off. Fans can buy their tickets at WesternMustangs.ca/tickets or watch the action on OUA.tv.
