London, ON – A tough battle went to extra time between the Mustangs and Windsor Lancers on Saturday afternoon and Windsor picked up a 62-60 win in overtime.
"I think in some ways it took us a little while to get going and shake off the rust (of the holiday break) from not playing for a month," said Mustangs Head Coach Nate McKibbon "I thought at times our effort and our defence got us back in, we've just gotta find a ways to create more points and movement and maybe go deeper on the bench,"
Western was a bit slow out of the gates to start the game and found themselves down by 10 after the 1
st quarter. Sarah Harvey led the mustangs with 7 of their 11 points in the frame.
The second quarter saw the Mustangs step on the gas and pour on the offence, taking the lead with 2.5 left (29-28). The Lancers would re-take the lead before halftime and lead 32-30 going into the dressing room. Ariane Saumure dropped 10 points in the second quarter to lead the Mustangs at the break.
"The first game after the break is always a tough one and we played a team tonight that have been back since (December) 27
th and have been playing a few games since then," said Saumure "We know we can't just play to the opponent, we need to bring our own game. I think we picked it up in the second quarter and brought the game back a bit after a quick group huddle."
The third quarter saw the intensity on the floor pick up as both sides evened out the scoring with Western taking a 15-14 advantage in the quarter and trailed by a single point (46-45) going into the final frame. Ariane Saumure came up with a couple of late-quarter steals to shift the momentum.
Both sides continued the pressure in the fourth quarter and each team had their chances late to put the game away but as they buzzer struck zeros, the score remained locked at 56-56 and we were off to overtime.
"The physicality whenever you play Windsor is going to be top notch and they definitely use their size to push us around as best they can so we need to do a better job of dealing with that," said McKibbon.
In OT The Mustangs took the opening points, opening up a 4 point lead in the opening minutes of the extra frame. Windsor tied it up just over a minute later with just over two minutes remaining. Neither side was able to get a bucket until the closing seconds of overtime when Windsor's Reine Ndome got a falling layup to take the lead and Windsor would hold on to take the 62-60 win.
While McKibbon wants to see his team forget this loss and move forward, Saumure says there is a few things she hopes her team remembers from the game.
"I think we all need to remember this feeling and what it's like losing in close games like that," said Saumure "There are some things we need to go back and watch the film and see what we did well and what we need to improve on but mostly we need to know what's needed to persevere and strive to be better."
The Mustangs are back on home court next Friday, January 13
th as they take on the Waterloo Warriors for a 6:00pm tip-off. Fans can buy their tickets at WesternMustangs.ca/tickets or watch the action on OUA.tv.
