On Wednesday, Nov. 29, the Wittenberg Men’s Basketball team took their first win of the week with a 78-65 lead over the Oberlin Yeomen. Following that up, the Tigers beat the Allegheny Gators 83-62 on Saturday, coming out this weekend with a winning streak and perfect record.
On Wednesday, the Tigers started off the game with Mitchell Balser, ’19, a transfer from The College of Wooster, Michael Morgan, ’20, James Johnson, ’21. Jacob Bertemes, ’20 and Chad Roy, ’18, on the court. Connor Seipel, ’20, was the leading scorer of the day for the Tigers with a total of 27 points.
Morgan came out hot, with a 2-point layup 17 seconds into the half. But, the Yeomen caught up quickly with another layup. The two teams were neck-in-neck for a majority of the half, but with 7:30 remaining, Seipel made a layup putting the Tigers ahead for the first time since the shot from Morgan. With 43 seconds left in the half, Johnson sunk a beautiful 3-point shot, putting the Tigers ahead 34-25.
Coming out for the second half, the Yeomen had a foul right off the rip. That sent Roy to the line where he made both of his free throws. Roy visited the line a total of six times in the second half, scoring 8 points there and only missing four free throws. The last points from the Tigers came from Landon Martin, ’21, with an unassisted layup.
The Tigers lead in assists, 14-13, and in rebounds, 44-24. Roy lead in rebounds with 10, also tying with Bertemes in assists, each player walking away with 4. The Tigers put up a total of 36 points in the paint, and scored 17 points off Yeomen turnovers.
On Saturday, the Tigers came out with a fire that the fans are becoming accustomed to seeing. They started Balser, Morgan, Bertemes, Roy and Seipel. Leading scorer for the game was Balser, with a total of 16 points, four of them from 3-point shots.
Balser got the ball rolling, or should we say dribbling, with his first 3-point shot of the day. His teammates followed him up with layups from Seipel and Roy with a 3-pointer from Rashaad Ali-Shakir, ’21. Wittenberg ended the first half with a 20-point lead over Allegheny, 40-20.
The second half, Roy, Bertemes and Seipel were on top of the layups and were aided by Martin who made three in a row. Johnson made one of his 3-pointers and the Tigers continued to rack up points. The Gators struggled to catch up and ended up falling short as the buzzer sounded.
The Tigers put up a great defense system and managed to be on top of everything in the offensive side. In total, the Tigers grabbed 10 more rebounds than the Gators, 39-29 and lead with assists 16-11. There was a tie for top rebounds for the Tigers between Roy and Jordan Pumroy, ’20. Roy also had the most assists for the day. Out of the 22 turnovers that the Gators had, the Tigers were able to take 15 of them and turn them into points. They finished with a total of 11, 3-point shots made in the game.
Keep a look out as the Tigers hit the road to take on the Tigers of DePauw University on Dec. 6, the Big Red of Denison University on Dec. 9 and then the Student Prince’s of Heidelberg University on Dec. 20.
