Quakers win third straight;
beat Heidelberg, 93-72

Stirling, Harrison combine for 46

|Box Score|

February 11, 2006

Eric Stirling

TIFFIN — Wilmington College hit 66-percent of its second-half shots to roar past Heidelberg, 93-72, in Ohio Athletic Conference play Saturday.

The Quakers have won three straight and stand 10-6 in the conference, 17-6 overall. Heidelberg drops to 4-12 in the OAC, 8-15 for the season.

"We played very well in both the full-court and half-court," WC head coach Scott Reule said. "Our offense really picked up. We did a nice job of attacking and getting the ball to the basket. They played some zone, they played some man, and we adapted to what they did. And we shot the ball extremely well. When you do all those things, you are hard to guard."

The Quakers held a seven-point halftime lead and the game appeared to have the makings of a nail-biter as the margin remained seven with 11:09 to play. Fred Harrison (Cleveland/East), however, had other thoughts. The sophomore guard scored seven straight points on a three-pointer, layup and dunk as the Quakers went on a 25-8 run that was punctuated by Justin Gaines' dunk at 5:23 that put the 'Berg in an 81-57 hole. Harrison scored 18 of his career-high 20 points in the second half Quaker explosion.

"Fred had a big spurt right at the beginning of the second half where everything that left his hand was going in," Reule said. "We started to sub for him, but we changed who we were subbing for. He was so hot, we didn't want to take him out of the game."

Harrison hit eight of 10 shots from the field and was four-for-five from three-point country. Senior post Eric Stirling (Brooklyn, N.Y./LaSalle Academy) also had a hot hand, connecting on 10 of 15 field goal attempts, two of two three-pointers and four of four free throws to finish with game-high 26 points.

"The thing I was most impressed with about Eric today was that he got 11 rebounds," Reule said. "When he's helping us on the glass, we're a very good basketball team. When our post can pull down 11 rebounds, that helps us so much, plus it gets him easy second-chance points."

As impressive as the second-half performance was, Reule said the game was won in the first half when Wilmington's bench was forced into action by foul trouble.

"We got great play out of our bench. We went 14-deep in the first half," Reule said. "We had several guys with two fouls, so we went a little deeper than we normally do. The response was great. The guys that came off the bench played so well, and we got that same response the second half. When everybody pitches in and you're sharing the ball, you''e going to have some spurts and be able to make strong runs on people."

Gaines (Cincinnati/Colerain) finished with eight points, Brett Carpenter (Marshalville/Smithville) scored seven, Travante Leftenant (Columbus/Africentric) added six and Nick Berter (Cincinnati/Reading) scored five. Brian Schmidt led Heidelberg with 14.

The Quakers out-rebounded Heidelberg, 38-25. In addition to Stirling's 11 boards, Carpenter collected six.

The Quakers, who have a strong grip on fourth-place in the OAC and the home-court first-round game the position offers, host Otterbein 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Fred Raizk Arena.