WOOSTER, Ohio - When the Wittenberg and Wooster men's basketball teams first met in the 2009-10 season, the affair was closely contested throughout. In the second meeting, the Tigers never trailed, leveraging 18 Wooster turnovers to down the Scots and even the season series. Wittenberg took a 67-56 road victory over the conference-leading Scots Saturday night to improve to 18-5 overall, but more importantly kept themselves locked into a second-place tie with Wabash and Allegheny at 10-4 in the North Coast Athletic Conference. The Scots fell to 18-5 overall and still lead the NCAC at 13-1.
Wittenberg stuck to the balanced offensive gameplan that has now helped them win their last four games, and as a result all 11 players that hit the floor registered points, led by 10 each from the quartet of junior guard Chris Sullivan (Columbus, Ohio/Upper Arlington), sophomore wing Josh McKee (New Carlisle, Ohio/Tecumseh), senior post Mark Snyder (Celina, Ohio/Parkway) and sophomore wing Michael Cooper (Springfield, Ohio/South).
Sullivan, Cooper and Snyder all finished the first half with six points apiece while McKee led with seven, helping propel the Tigers to a 37-23 halftime lead. The first 10 minutes of the game saw Wooster behind but keeping pace, never more than seven points back and as close as one 2:37 in, but the Red & White took over heading to the break, capitalizing on eight Wooster turnovers within the last 10 minutes. Wittenberg ran out to a 14-point lead thanks to 12 points off of turnovers to close the opening period.
The second half was more of the same, as Wooster committed another nine turnovers to give the Tigers nine more points off turnovers for 21 total, compared to just four for Wooster, a differential of 17 that more than accounted for the final 11-point spread. Wooster's shooting finally started to heat up in the last eight minutes of the game, as they shot 57.1 percent in the second half to bring their 37 percent mark in the first up to a final of 45.8 percent.
Despite the Scots late-push, the game was all but over after the Tigers climbed to a 20-point lead just three minutes into the second half. Senior David Nowicki (Carmel, Ind./Westfield) intercepted a Wooster pass, their 11th turnover of the game, and broke up the court to lay the ball in and head to the line for an extra after drawing the foul. His old fashioned three-point play set the Tigers up with a lead of no less than 11 the rest of the way out.
On the boards, the numbers were just as spread out for the Tigers, with a surprising team leader in junior wing Seth Hill (Bellefontaine, Ohio/Bellefontaine) who pulled down six. Sullivan, Snyder, Cooper and sophomore forward Jacob Weide (Fort Wayne, Ind./Homestead) all grabbed three, and all but two players on the floor had at least one.
For Wittenberg, the win does not set up what in other years might have been a cruise to the finish, instead leading to a showdown with Wabash on Wednesday, Feb. 17 at 8 p.m. at Pam Evans Smith Arena in Springfield, which could be the determining factor in the three-way race for second place. That game is the finale of a basketball doubleheader which kicks off with the Wittenberg women taking on Earlham at 6 p.m. in a bid to clinch the outright NCAC regular season championship and home-court advantage throughout the tournament.
Written by: John Strawn '07