The Laurentian Voyageurs basketball team took to the court at the University of Guelph for a pre-season game against the NCAA Division I Iona Gaels.
The Laurentian men could not come away with an upset, falling to the Gaels by a score of 104-69. Iona's Jonathan Huffman led all scorers with 22 points, while Matas Tirilis led all Laurentian scorers with 15 points.
For most of the first quarter the Laurentian men were able to keep the score within a few points of the bigger Iona Gaels, however, with about two and a half minutes remaining the Gaels were able to consistently extend their lead from five points to seven points, then ending the quarter up by 14.
Iona outscored Laurentian 34-20, with 15 of their first quarter points coming off of Laurentian turnovers.
In the second quarter, the Voyageurs were unable to cut into
the Iona
lead with the Gaels quickly extending their lead to as much as
29 points within the first four minutes of the quarter.
For the rest of the half, the Voyageurs dug down deep and were able to hold their ground, ending the quarter only down 25 points, by a score of 63-38.
In the second half, Laurentian came out playing hard, but were unable to make any significant cuts into the first half deficit, with the Gaels coming away with an eventual 104-69 win.
In the end, there were some key statistics in the Voyageurs loss, with the Gaels out-rebounding the blue and gold 42 to 19 which led to 16 Iona second chance points to Laurentian's four.
Iona also found their mark from the three-point line hitting 13 of 21 three-pointers to Laurentian's six of 10 attempted.
The games leading scorer was Huffman, a seven-foot centre for the Iona Gaels, who went nine-for-nine from the field and four-for-four from beyond the three-point arc.
Leading the way for Laurentian was Tirilis (Mississauga, Ont.) who had 15 points and rookie Andrew Lalonde (Sudbury, Ont.) who had 11 points and five assists.
Also recording solid games were veterans Alex Whiteman (Vancouver, B.C.) and Dave Otterbein (London, Ont.) and rookie Jamie Weldon (Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.) who all chipped in with nine points each.
"We saw some good things from our young guys today," said head coach Shawn Swords, in a release. "They really stepped up, played well and competed hard, which is a great sign."
The Laurentian Voyageurs will now hit the hard court at the Ben Avery Gymnasium for the official opening of their 2008-09 training camp.
The Voyageurs first home game of the year is a pre-season match up with the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks on Thursday, October 16 at 7 p.m., while their first league game comes on Friday, November 7 at 8 p.m. in St. Catharine's against the defending national champion Brock Badgers.
