MBB | Late Surge Leads Marauders Past Voyageurs

The Laurentian men's basketball team began their mid-January road trip with a Friday night game against the McMaster Marauders in Hamilton, where they would fall to the hometown Marauders 83-77.

With the game underway, both teams came out of the gates flying, exchanging baskets on both ends of the floor and giving the fans in attendance an immediate taste of how this game was going to go. The story of the quarter for Laurentian was turnovers; committing a total of eight in the first.  This led to easy fast break points for McMaster and allowed them to have a leg up going into the second by a score of 24-20.

In the second, Laurentian learned from their previous mistakes, limiting second quarter turnovers to just three. This, combined with strong defense and getting the Marauders into early foul trouble, allowed Laurentian to get themselves right back into what was obviously going to be a very tightly contested game. They held their opponent to a lowly 11 points and went into the half-time break tied at 35. The Voyageurs first half scoring was led by Gaetan Chamand who had 13 points in the first half on 67% shooting from the field.

The second half saw more of the same from these two teams as neither side could really pull away from each other, continuing to exchange baskets and mini 5- and 6-point runs. Defense, just like in the first quarter, took a back seat as both teams ended the quarter with over 20 points each. However, it was Laurentian that would go into the fourth down by two points. The Marauders managed to go 8-9 with their free throws in the quarter compared to Laurentian's 1-2 and, with just one quarter to go, the score read McMaster 60, Laurentian 58.

The game came right down the wire as the Voyageurs continued to go toe-to-toe with the Marauders, who came into the game as favourites to win based on the two teams records so far this season. Laurentian did not back down, though, and kept the game close right down to the end. In the end, McMaster were able to manufacture a late scoring surge, allowing them to overpower Laurentian's best efforts. The game ended 83-77 with the hometown Marauders on top.

The game standout performers included Caillou Lacroix with 24 points as he moves into 4th among OUA scoring, averaging 20.0 points per game, as well as Chamand, who put up a season high 19 points and 11 rebounds for his first double-double of the year.

Laurentian ends their road trip with a game Saturday against the York Lions with tip-off set for 8pm in Toronto.

Andrew Lemieux