SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — The Wittenberg Tigers opened the home portion of the 2006-07 schedule much as they had played the first three road games. They won it the hard way, defeating Transylvania University 66-59 in a re-match of the Tigers' NCAA Division III Tournament quarterfinal win of a season ago.
The win moved the 10th ranked Tigers to 4-0 on the young season, while Transylvania dropped to 2-1. Wittenberg returns to action Dec. 2 at Denison in the North Coast Athletic Conference opener for both teams.
The Tigers never trailed in the game, but they were also unable to put it away. After taking a 28-19 lead into the locker room at halftime, Wittenberg put together its best five minutes of basketball to take a 39-23 lead at 15:23 mark of the second half.
The Pioneers finally seemed to awaken at that point, going on a 16-2 run over the next five minutes to pull within 41-39 at the 10:04 mark. The lead ebbed and flowed from that point between one and seven points, but the Tigers had the answers down the stretch. After Transylvania closed to with one point on a jumper by Blake McCowan with 1:05 remaining, the Tigers closed out by scoring eight of the final nine points. Senior post Jack Hemenway (Centerville, Ohio/Centerville) hit a jumper with 33 seconds left, then he rebounded a Transylvania miss at the other end and calmly sank two free throws after getting fouled. Then sophomore wing Gregg Hill (Redford, Mich./Union) added a pair of free throws after making a key steal. Senior post Dane Borchers (Russia, Ohio/Russia) added a lay-up just before the horn sounded for the final two points.
Hemenway had a career-best 15 points to lead the Tigers, and he added game-highs of seven rebounds and two blocked shots. He hit 5-of-8 from the floor and 5-of-7 from the free throw line as Wittenberg hit 57.5 percent of their shots in the game as a team.
Borchers added 12 points and five rebounds, while freshman guard David Nowicki (Carmel, Ind./Westfield) was solid off the bench with a career-high nine points, two rebounds and two assists. The Tigers finished with 17 turnovers in the game as they continually struggled against Transylvania's full-court pressure defense, but for the fourth straight game Wittenberg won the battle of the boards, this time by a 29-24 count.
Transylvania was paced by Nick Feagan with 19 points and seven rebounds, but he fouled out on a close call after a steal and a layup with just under three minutes left in the game. Aaron Cash added 11 points and McCowan finished with 10. The Pioneers shot 33 percent from the field in the first half but made 50 percent in the final 20 minutes, including 3-of-8 from three-point range.