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FEB.
1 — Goshen Can't Get Clicking In Loss To IWU
Wesleyan
avoids sweep with timely shooting in 68-63 defeat of
Goshen |
Goshen, IN — Coming into Tuesday night’s
game at the Roman Gingerich Center, the Indiana Wesleyan University Wildcats
had knocked off the Mid-Cental Conference’s top two teams for its
only league wins, with both victories coming on the road.
Make it the conference’s top three squads.
The visiting Wildcats used solid offensive execution to hand
Goshen just its second home loss of the year while bumping the Leafs out
of third place in MCC standings, winning by a 68-63 score. Indiana Wesleyan
led for the entire game save for a 24-second stretch early in the first
half, as Goshen (17-9, 6-6) could never quite get things going offensively.
“We didn’t execute as well as we have been, were careless
with the ball at times and generally were impatient on offense,” said
Stan Daugherty, Goshen head coach. “Indiana Wesleyan has played
well against the top teams in the league, so you know it’s going
to be a dogfight every night out. Today, their execution was better than
ours,
and they made shots to keep and extend a lead.”
Things started off in the right fashion for the Wildcats, as
the team buried its first two shots for a quick 5-0 lead. Goshen eventually
responded by taking a 6-5 lead at the 14:50 mark in the first half, but
it was an advantage that would not last long. Wesleyan buried a jumper
at the 14:26 mark to make the score 7-6, and it was a lead the Wildcats
would keep for good. The Leafs, behind just an 18 for 49 shooting clip
(36.7 percent), would tie the game on three occasions but not grab another
lead. Indiana Wesleyan led by a 31-29 count at halftime, and would not
surrender the benefit throughout the second period.
“We had been getting good ball movement for the last few games,
and we didn’t tonight,” Daugherty said. “In the second
half we got some relatively good looks at the basket, but we
didn’t
make enough. Overall, we just weren’t very sharp offensively, and
you have to be in a lower possession game such as this one was.”
It wasn’t as if the Leafs didn’t have their chances in the
second half to take control of the game, it was just that the team couldn’t
capitalize on those chances. Goshen cut Wesleyan’s lead to a single
point two times in the second half and to three points on five different
occasions, but Daugherty’s team couldn’t get scores when it
needed them. The Leafs’ most plentiful chance to make a move came
at the 16:06 mark, when the team trailed by a 37-38 score. Goshen got
four consecutive stops on defense, only to miss five consecutive shots
on the offensive end. Such was the case again at the 7:57 mark, when a
47-50 deficit couldn’t be erased despite three straight defensive
stops. Three missed shots on offense expunged what could have been.
Goshen eventually trailed by as many as 12 points in the second
half, but a late rally cut the Wesleyan lead to just four points. The
Wildcats made enough free throws to keep the Leafs at least two possessions
away, however, moving Goshen into a fourth-place tie in the MCC with Marian
College.
“In this conference, you can’t worry about wins and losses
and where you’re at in the standings,” Daugherty said. “You
just have to go out and play extremely well each game to have a chance.
Indiana
Wesleyan did that tonight, and they deserved to win.”
Goshen was led by junior Eric Walsh’s game-high 21 points, while
sophomore Willie Frazier scored 17 on a six of seven effort from the floor.
Junior Jordan Buller tossed in 12 points to go with six assists, while
senior Paul Kopanski charted six points to go with a game-high nine rebounds.
The Leafs’ 23 for 24 performance from the free throw line couldn’t
offset a four for 16 effort from the three-point arc (25 percent), however,
as Wesleyan was able to knock in seven of 19 from deep (36.8 percent)
en route to a 25 for 53 effort from the field overall (47.2 percent).
Wesleyan adds Goshen to its list of impressive road wins in the
MCC this season, with the others coming against nationally-ranked
Huntington College and Taylor University, the first- and second-place
teams in the league,
respectively. The win also dodged a Goshen sweep of the Wildcats, as the
Leafs defeated Indiana Wesleyan 75-59 on Dec. 9 in Marion, Ind.
The Leafs will have no time to dwell on the loss, however, as
a date with neighboring rival Bethel College lurks just four days away.
Goshen will travel to the Wiekamp Center on Saturday, with game time slated
for 3 p.m. |
  Sophomore
Willie Frazier
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