Men’s basketball seeks first win of season against Westminster
When the Waynesburg Yellow Jacket men’s basketball team takes the court Saturday against the Westminster Titans in the Rudy Marisa Fieldhouse, the Jackets will be looking for their first win of the season overall and in Presidents’ Athletic Conference play.
After a week off and coming out of a pair of losses to start the PAC portion of its schedule, Waynesburg will battle a Westminster team that it beat twice during last year’s successful season, however, the makeup of the two teams has changed.
On one end, Waynesburg lost seven seniors, while Westminster played last year without a single senior on the roster. In the first matchup last season between the two teams, a 70-63 Waynesburg victory, four Jackets finished with double-digit scoring efforts: Jason Propst, Jacob Fleegle, Kenny Klase (who since graduated) and now-senior guard BJ Durham. For Westminster, Deontay Scott and Charlie Wallander paced the Titans with 16 and 14 points, respectively.
The second contest, played at home for the Jackets, was a much easier win, an 81-60 final. Westminster’s Paul Carswell led all scorers with 20 points, but Waynesburg’s four double-figure scoring outputs were enough to best the Titans, an effort highlighted by now-senior wing DJ Ritchie’s 14 points.
Both Wallander, Carswell and Scott return to Westminster on the hardcourt this season, and after falling in five straight to open the season, the Titans have rattled off two straight PAC victories against the newly-christened Chatham program and most recently, last Saturday, Dec. 4 against Thomas More at home.
For Waynesburg, competitiveness has been a constant even though the team is 0-6 overall and 0-2 in conference action after road losses to Thomas More last Wednesday and Grove City Saturday. Both games were won by four points or fewer by the opposition for the Jackets. The only game in which Waynesburg has struggled at the end is a loss to Alma College, in which Alma nailed double-digit three-point field goals and shot over 55-percent from the field.
In the loss at Grove City Saturday, senior forward Nate Labishak notched 18 points to lead the offense for Waynesburg while Ritchie put through 17 points of his own. In Westminster’s win over Thomas More, who beat the Jackets in overtime last week 85-83, the Titans received four 10-plus point scoring efforts from its team. Jason Pilarski scored 14 points, while Cameron Pozsgai and Domenick chipped in 11 a-piece. Wallander netted 10 points of his own in the 72-60 statement win.
Waynesburg is still searching for some answers in regards to finding out the “style,” in which they will play, according to head coach Mark Christner. The sixth year head coach said the effort is there from this young team, it is just about “developing a style of play we are going to commit to playing all the time.”
Christner said once this team figures that out, the rest will figure itself out.
Waynesburg hosts Westminster this Saturday, Dec. 12 inside the friendly confines of the Rudy Marisa Fieldhouse looking for its first PAC win and first win of the still-young 2015-16 campaign. The Jackets were 7-1 at home in conference play last season.
Tipoff Saturday is scheduled for 3:30 p.m in the second game of the women’s and men’s PAC doubleheader.