The Algonquin Thunder men’s basketball squad couldn’t keep up with the scorching hot Seneca Sting as they fell 108-91 on Friday, Nov. 22.
Both teams opened up strong, with the Sting coming out firing threes left, right and center. It was a barrage of three-pointers for both teams, and at the end of the first quarter, the Thunder led the way 28-27.
The lead wouldn’t last long, however, with the Sting capitalizing on careless mistakes and turnovers by the Thunder, pushing it for fast point break opportunities.
The Thunder fought back in the second quarter and only trailed by six points with a score of 49-43 at the end of the first half.
The start of the third quarter was sloppy for both teams, missing wide-open shots and making careless passes.
The Sting seemed to find a groove midway through the third quarter and never looked back. They opened up the floodgates and scored 31 points in the third quarter alone, most of them being from behind the three-point arc.
They led the Thunder by a score of 80-65 by the end of the third. While the Thunder made several late pushes to cut the score to a ten-point deficit, the Sting always had an answer.
The final score was 108-91 for the Sting, which improved their record to 7-1 while the Thunder go down to 2-7.
Thunder head coach Trevor Costello sought to improve the team’s mood after the game.
“Just know that there’s a team last year that went 1-9 and they made the playoffs,” said Costello. “We’re ahead of 1-9 and we just [can’t] get discouraged.”
Dakoda Lewis for the Seneca Sting was unstoppable and dropped an unbelievable thirteen threes on fourteen attempts. To put that into context, Algonquin made thirteen threes as a team. Lewis scored a game-high 47 points.
Costello praised the shooting of the Sting, especially Lewis for putting on a show on the road.
“Keep the ball out of one’s hand. I haven’t seen a performance like that shooting,” said Costello. “I’ve been around the league a long time and I haven’t seen a shooting performance like that, he was so good.”
Thunder player, Zerious Loney capped the game off with 28 points and eight rebounds, desperately trying to keep his team afloat the entire game.
Loney stressed the importance of playing on both ends of the court, something the Thunder struggled to do during the game.
“Our defence has not been good this first semester and hopefully, it’s better the second semester,” said Loney. “It’s being locked in, [and] keep doing what coach tells us to do.”
The Thunder take on the George Brown Huskies on Saturday, Nov. 30 at 6 p.m.