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Quakers
take down Otterbein
for fourth straight win
Senior
Night crowd treated to 78-65 win
|Box
Score|
February
15, 2006
Shown,
from left, are Wilmington College seniors Brett Carpenter,
Josh Rohrbacher, Eric Stirling and Mike Umpleby.
Zach Broermann's 15 points led three Quakers in double figures
as Wilmington College defeated Otterbein, 78-65, in Ohio Athletic
Conference play Wednesday at Fred Raizk Arena. The win is
the fourth straight for the Quakers, who are 11-6 in the OAC,
18-6 overall. The 18 wins is the most for a WC men's team
since Fred Raizk coached the Quakers to a school record 19-3
mark in 1957-58. Otterbein, which had won seven of its last
nine games, drops to 8-9 in the conference and 12-12 for the
season.
Otterbein's
patient half-court offense kept the Cardinals in the lead
most of the first half, an advantage that reached 25-18 when
Ross Banaszak hit a pair of free throws at 6:10. On cue, Wilmington's
bench turned the game around. Fred Harrison (Cleveland/East)
hit a three-pointer and a dunk as the Quakers scored seven
straight to knot the score. The Cardinals regained the lead
and again stretched the margin to seven before Broermann (Brookville,
Ind./Franklin County) buried a trey to pull WC to within four,
34-30, at the half.
"Otterbein
is a very good basketball team," WC head coach Scott Reule
said. "They've lost some kids throughout the year, but they've
got two really good players in Ross Banaszak and Tyler Ousley.
Those two are so tough to guard."
Ousley, Otterbein's towering 6-7 senior center, is the reigning
OAC Player of the Week. On Saturday, he set career highs in
points (34) and rebounds (18) in the Cardinals' win over John
Carroll. Against Wilmington, Ousley pulled down 13 boards
but managed just six points. Banaszak scored 12.
"I
thought we did a pretty good job of fronting the post and
keeping it out of Ousley's hands and pressuring Banaszak and
not leaving him when the ball went inside," Reule said. "Our
defense created our offense. I think our defense helped us
win this game more than anything, particularly our second-half
defense."
Otterbein
committed 12 of its 21 turnovers in the second half as the
Quakers' athleticism and depth proved to be a deadly combination.
Offensively, Broermann, who led the OAC in three-point shooting
percentage last season, heated up. The sophomore point guard
hit three three-pointers in the first three minutes of the
half as Wilmington bolted into the lead.
"Zach
is a great shooter. We've talked about it all year. It's just
a matter of him getting the confidence so he can relax and
shoot the ball," Reule said. "He got rolling tonight and you
could just see the confidence set in on him. Zach shooting
the ball like he did tonight could be huge for us come tournament
time."
Brett
Carpenter (Marshalville/Smithville) scored eight straight
points as the Quakers pushed the lead to 54-45 midway through
the half. Otterbein surged for nine straight points and tied
the game on Adam Wells' three-pointer at 6:37. It was Otterbein's
final surge. Scott Walters (Mentor/Perry) scored in the paint
and hit a pair of free throws as the Quakers scored nine unanswered
points to pull away from the Cardinals.
"We
were looking for transition offense and transition defense,"
Reule said. "We wanted to make it an up and down game so that
our depth would be a factor. Late in the game, it was probably
one of the biggest keys in us winning the game."
Broermann
was joined in double figures by Carpenter with 14 points and
Josh Rohrbacher (Columbus/Beechcroft) with 13. Carpenter,
Rohrbacher, Eric Stirling (Brooklyn, N.Y./LaSalle Academy)
and Mike Umpleby (Columbus/Centennial) played their final
regular-season game at Fred Raizk Arena, but the senior quartet
will be back on the home hardwood Feb. 22 when the Quakers
host an OAC tournament game for the first time since WC joined
the conference in 2000.
The
Quakers close the regular season Saturday at Marietta.
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