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| Shane Regan led Wesleyan with 17 points. Wesleyan athletics file photo |
In a week where the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country have already fallen, Saturday saw a bit of a return to normalcy, as No. 3 Trine rolled over Hope and No. 4 Wesleyan remained unbeaten by pulling away from No. 12 Trinity (Conn.) on the road in Saturday's afternoon games.
For a time on Saturday afternoon, the NESCAC battle between Connecticut-based rivals was everything you could want in a basketball game: baskets answered with baskets, three-pointers answered with three-pointers, stops answered with stops. And all this happened with two of the big stars for Trinity (Conn.) on the bench with foul trouble: Henry Vetter and Jarrel Okorougo. And when they had been in the game, they were a combined 2-for-15. When they came back in the second half, the big run came to a screeching half, as the big pair finished 5-for-22 from the floor and Wesleyan pulled away to a 72-63 win.
The Cardinals (19-0, 5-0 NESCAC) trailed 27-25 at halftime but shot like they were playing in their own gym in the second half, hitting on 14 of 23 field goal attempts for 61 percent from the fllor. Shane Regan finished with a team-high 17 points, while Ben Lyttle added 16 and Nicky Johnson contributed 14 points and four assists. Drew Lazarre had a big day for Trinity (15-3, 3-2), scoring 21 points to go with nine rebounds, five assists and just one turnover in 34 minutes.
"This game was exactly what I thought it was going to be. It was really a rock fight," Wesleyan coach Joe Reilly told Riley Zayas after the game. "They're a very good team and they know what we're trying to do, we know what they're trying to do. [Lazarre] came out and had 18 points in the first half [for Trinity], which was incredible. I thought we weathered the storm a little bit and I'm really proud of the resilience. It's hard to win on the road."
Wesleyan returns home to face No. 9 Tufts next Friday and Connecticut College on Saturday. Tufts beat Conn today, 71-42. The Cardinals are the last unbeaten team remaining in Division III men's basketball, and have been for the past 10 days. "The guys are focused," Reilly said. "They're not overwhelmed by the win streak, they're not overwhelmed by the success. They're really staying grounded. It's getting harder and harder the deeper you go into the season to stay grounded and stay focused. But they're doing a good job."
No. 3 Trine doesn't have the burden of being unbeaten on its back, but the defending national champions have been dealing with their own emotional burdens since the death of Fred Garland in December. The Thunder showed little sign of that on the floor on Saturday, however, in a 77-54 win against Hope. Drew Moore led all scorers with 17 points on 7-for-16 shooting, while Nate Tucker added 16 points and six assists as the Thunder improved to 16-1, 6-0 in the MIAA. Hope shot just 28 percent from the floor, 3-for-24 from three-point range, never led, and did not place a single scorer in double figures. The Thunder placed 12 players into the scoring column.
Illinois Wesleyan, ranked No. 5 in the latest poll, had little trouble with Wheaton (Ill.), which is winless in CCIW play and 3-15 overall. Nobody played more than 24 minutes for the Titans, who improved to 16-2 overall and 8-1 in the conference with a 90-68 win. Nick Roper racked up 23 points in 22 minutes, and Mason Funk added 17 points.
Tenth-ranked UW-La Crosse remained tied atop the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference as the Eagles placed all five starters in double figures in an 80-75 win at UW-Whitewater, three days after the Warhawks had won at top-ranked Platteville. UWL (15-3, 6-1) led by double digits midway through the second half before the Warhawks (9-9, 3-4) cut the lead to 70-69 with 5:28 left on a layup by Collin Madson. Sam Grieger answered with a three-pointer to push the lead to four, but Carter Capstran's three-point response cut it to 74-73 with 2:39 left. After a pair of JJ Paider free throws with 1:53 remaining gave UWL a 76-73 advantage, Madson's layup cut it to 76-75 with 1:03 left. He missed the potential game-tying free throw. Paider connected on two free throws with 39 seconds left to make it 78-75 and after a Warhawks turnover, Paider finished the scoring with seven seconds left on a dunk.
No. 17 UW-Stevens Point lost its second in a row and for the third time in five games as UW-Eau Claire won at home, 71-66. Michael Casper went for 22 points and Andre Renta added 20 as Eau Claire won the first meeting of the schools in front of 937 fans in the sparkling new Sonnentag Event Center. The win pulled the Blugolds (12-6, 4-3 WIAC) into third place in the conference, while the Pointers fell to 13-5, 3-4.
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps trailed Pomona-Pitzer by 11 with less than five minutes to play, came all the way back to force overtime on a buzzer-beating 10-footer from Reid Jones, and then won it 72-71 in the second overtime on a putback from AJ Rohosy with 4.7 seconds left on Saturday evening in front of a raucous crowd of 1,352 at Pomona-Pitzer's Voelkel Gymnasium. With the win, CMS improves to 12-4 overall and 6-1 in the SCIAC, bouncing back from a narrow loss to Cal Lutheran on Wednesday for its first conference defeat. Pomona-Pitzer falls to 10-7 overall and 4-4 in conference play with the loss.
No. 24 John Carroll started off its second trip through the OAC schedule by avenging a loss from the first run-through, as the Blue Streaks went on a 19-2 run to the start the second half. The Polar Bears responded in a huge way with three straight three-pointers, including a four-point play to get their deficit down to just four in just two minutes. The Blue Streaks built the lead back to seven before a 6-0 run by ONU's Jadi Cunningham Jr. would set the score at 62-61 Blue Streaks with a minute and a half remaining. No team would score for the next minute and the Polar Bears would have the ball down one with 30 seconds remaining. Chase Toppin caused a miss down low and Frazier got fouled after grabbing the rebound sending him to the free throw line with 0.2 seconds left, or so it seemed. After making the first free throw, Frazier was stopped by an official timeout to double-check how much time was remaining, leaving the Blue Streaks and their fans in complete disbelief. Luckily, the refs got it right the first time and no time was added on. Frazier made the second free throw and John Carroll headed home with its 10th consecutive win, 64-61 against Ohio Northern.
Hood pulled into a first-place tie in the MAC Commonwealth as the Blazers' Garrison Linton hit a catch and shoot buzzer beater with less than a second left in overtime to take down York (Pa.) 95-93. The Spartans (12-5, 5-1) came into the game in first place all alone and unbeaten in conference play. With less than a minute remaining, York had possession and missed on two shots to take the lead in regulation. A missed jumper by York led to a Jack Fricka rebound and a Hood timeout. Hood (12-5, 5-1) had the final possession in regulation as well, but Linton drained clock with a dribble and stepped right for an elbow jumper that hit back iron. Garrett Cox led Hood with a career-high 32 points and added 10 rebounds in the win.
Jamarion Butler led six scorers in double figures as Pitt-Bradford ran past Mount Aloysius on the road, defeating the Mounties 130-94. A matchup of two teams that averaged a combined 186 points per game coming into the day blew past that total with more than seven minutes to play. Butler finished with a game-high 27 points, while Keshon Kittrell was two assists short of a triple-double, finishing with 15 points, 12 rebounds, eight assists and also six steals. UPB improved to 16-1, 9-0 in the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference, while Mount Aloysius fell to 5-13, 3-6.