MBB | Voyageurs Go Back to Winning Ways Against Ridgebacks

Saturday night saw the Laurentian Voyageurs Men's Basketball team travel to the GTA as they ended their weekend with a matchup with the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks.

As the game got underway it was instantly all Voyageurs. Spearheaded by their outstanding defensive efforts and formidable shooting the Voyageurs were able to firstly out rebound Ontario Tech 15-8 in the quarter while holding them to just 3-11 shooting from the field and just 9 points. Laurentian's offense fared much better as they would put up a total of 20 points in the first giving themselves an 11 point lead. 

Laurentian's shooting would go somewhat cold in the second quarter as their three point shooting struggled and ended up really hurting them going just 2-10 in the second with the Ridgebacks being able to gain a little momentum in their offense. In the end Ontario Tech would outscore the Voyageurs in the second quarter 19-14 and the score would end up being 34-28 Voyageurs going into halftime.

The third quarter once again saw very little scoring. Both teams would shoot under 26% from the field coming out of the halftime break with both offenses seeming to have hit a brick wall. In the end it would be the Ridgebacks outsourcing Laurentian 11-8 in the quarter to bring the lead down to 3 going into the final ten minutes. 

Laurentian wouldn't make it easy on themselves as the Ridgebacks did all they could to mount the late comeback. That being said an outstanding fourth quarter performance from Ismael Konate who would put up 7 points on 3-3 shooting would help the Voyageurs hold off the surging Ridgebacks with Laurentian snapping their 2 game losing streak with a 63-55 victory on the road.

Laurentian's standout performance came from the aforementioned Konate who put up a total of 13 points along with 9 rebounds in the game.

Laurentian comes home next weekend and will face off against two teams that stand right near the top of the OUA standings as both the Ottawa GeeGees and Carleton Ravens make the trip to the Nickel City with both Friday and Saturday nights games scheduled to begin at 8pm from the Ben Avery Gym. 

- Andrew Lemieux