Jackets look to split season series
The Waynesburg University men’s basketball team meets Bethany in a pivotal Presidents’ Athletics Conference game with playoff positioning on the line for the streaking Yellow Jackets.
Waynesburg entered the week winners of six of its last seven games with signature wins over Thomas More and Saint Vincent, both firsts in coach Mark Christner’s tenure. The Jackets played host to Thiel this Wednesday night in a game played past this week’s deadline.
Bethany College is the only other team in the PAC that can match the Jacket’s wins over Saint Vincent and Thomas More and enter the week holding the number two spot in the conference with two weeks to go.
The Bison used a win over Chatham last Saturday to move to a season-best seven games over .500, while the Jackets victory over Washington & Jefferson pushed Waynesburg to two games over .500 for the first time this season.
Despite losing the PAC’s scoring leader and conference player of the year from 2014-2015, the Bison have nearly matched and will likely surpass last season’s win total and seed for the PAC tournament under first-year head coach Nick Hager.
Bethany’s Calique Jones, Antonio Rudolph, Andrew Williams and Alan Harper all made the leap from rotation players to double-digit scorers for the Bison, giving the Bison four such threats, compared to just Delonte Joyce averaging double figures a season ago.
The Bison out-rebound opponents on average, force more turnovers than they commit and shoot a better percentage from the floor and three pointers than their opposition. They also have wins over four of the top five teams in the PAC beside themselves and have not lost to a sub-.500 team all season.
The Bison handled Waynesburg in West Virginia back in January 84-73. Harper and Jones outscored the Jackets’ top scorers for Waynesburg, D.J. Ritchie and B.J. Durham, 41-27. Despite getting three double-figure scorers, outside of Ritchie and Durham, with Nate Labishak, Jon Knab and Dylan O’Hara all adding 10, the Jacket bench was outscored by six and Bethany shot 50 percent from the floor on the day.
Bethany used a 13-2 run to turn a two point lead with 8:16 remaining in regulation to an 11 point lead that that Jackets could not whittle below eight in the final moments.
For Waynesburg, junior Christian Koroly has expanded his role and impact with his minutes creeping up towards 20 a game with a double-figure scoring average on the Jackets’ three-game streak entering the week.
Jacket coach Mark Christner has been masterful in February the last two seasons against PAC opponents. In 2013, the Jackets were 5-1 to finish the regular season before winning a home playoff date with W&J before falling to Saint Vincent. In 2014, Waynesburg was a perfect 5-0 to close the regular season, and won consecutive home postseason games, including a semifinal victory over Bethany to reach the PAC championship game.
Waynesburg looks to continue its February success with a win against another top PAC threat on Saturday following the women’s game at the Rudy Marisa Fieldhouse with tip scheduled for 3:30 p.m.