Men’s basketball loses sixth straight game
Coming off two straight losses by a combined total of five points earlier in the week at the hands of Frostburg State University and Thomas More College, the Waynesburg men’s basketball team entered the weekend looking to end its three-game stretch before returning home on a high note against Grove City College.
However, the Wolverines thought otherwise with a 75-71 win over the Yellow Jackets in each team’s second Presidents’ Athletic Conference contest.
The game was back-and-forth for the entirety of the contest. Grove City took leads that Waynesburg erased, and then took the lead again.
Down the stretch, Waynesburg battled back into the game, taking advantage of missed free throws by Grove City and fought offensively to climb back in. But in the end, the Jackets fell short in its comeback effort, falling to 0-6 overall and 0-2 in the early stages of its PAC schedule.
“Overall we competed hard, but it turned into a five minute game down the stretch and they were the tougher team,” said head coach Mark Christner.
Both teams shot well in the first half with Waynesburg and Grove City each shooting 50 percent from the floor. This led to a halftime score of 33-30 in favor of the host team, Grove City.
Much like the first half, the second consisted of more back-and-forth play with Grove City just edging the Jackets in shooting percentage from the field and, in the end, knocking down a total of seven more free throws than Waynesburg.
This small difference isn’t the first time the Jackets have lost by a slim margin this season in a tight contest.
The season-opening loss at Muskingum and last Wednesday’s loss to Thomas More in Kentucky were overtime losses, while differences of six points or fewer were the differences in the losses in the Frostburg State and Calvin games.
“We played hard all game and found ourselves in a very good game in the last two minutes like we have so often throughout this season,” said senior guard BJ Durham. “Games like this will help us down the road, giving us experience for future situations of similar predicaments.”
Waynesburg’s shooting performance was not Christner’s concern moving forward after the game.
“Our rebounding is what we need to get better at, especially offensively. Just because we are young doesn’t mean we can’t win, what we have is good enough to win games,” said Christner.
Waynesburg was out rebounded 39-27 by Grove City and also lost the battle on the offensive glass.
The margin helped to dip the overall rebounding margin for the Jackets this season to nearly negative 11, which is the worst margin in the conference to this date.
Grove City was led in scoring by senior forward Caleb Knudsen, who had 22 points to help lift the Wolverines to their victory. Knudsen was named the PAC Men’s Basketball Player of the Week by the conference on Monday.
The Jackets had four players who scored in double figures, led by senior forward Nate Labishak, who had 18 points for Waynesburg.
Senior wing DJ Ritchie chipped in 17, while Durham and freshman Dylan O’Hara were both in double figures as well.
Moving forward, the Jackets’ next opponent will be Westminster College in another PAC matchup this Saturday. The contest will serve as the PAC home-opener for Waynesburg and only its second game at home this season.
Tipoff against the Titans (2-5, 2-0) is set for 3:30 p.m. in Waynesburg.