Quakers beat Capital for 20th win,
first-ever OAC Tournament victory

WC to face No. 1 seed Baldwin-Wallace in semifinals

|Box Score|

February 22, 2006

Wilmington College's season of firsts continues.

The Quakers got career-high 28 points from Zach Broermann to post a 73-64 win over Capital in an Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament quarterfinal game Wednesday at Fred Raizk Arena.

The game represented WC's first home OAC Tournament game. The win was WC's first in OAC Tournament play. The victory is the Quakers' 20th of the season, the first time a WC men's squad has reached the 20-win plateau.

The No. 4 seed Quakers (20-6) will play No. 1 seed Baldwin-Wallace 8 p.m. Friday in the semifinals in Berea. The Yellow Jackets defeated No. 8 Mount Union, 96-84, Wednesday. In other quarterfinal games, No. 2 Ohio Northern held off No. 7 John Carroll, 72-59, and No. 3 Muskingum defeated No. 6 Otterbein, 81-62. Ohio Northern will face Muskingum 6 p.m. Friday in Berea. The championship game will tip-off at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Baldwin-Wallace.

The season of firsts continues.

"The most important thing of the long list of accomplishments this team has compiled is that we won tonight and we're moving on in the tournament," first-year WC head coach Scott Reule said. "One of our goals is to win an OAC championship. There's a lot of great teams in this league, but we feel it is attainable for our team. We just want to keep playing and have the opportunity to keep winning."

If Broermann (Brookville, Ind./Franklin County) made a mistake Wednesday night, it happened before he arrived at Fred Raizk Arena. The sophomore guard was near-perfection, hitting seven-of-eight field goal attempts, six-of-six three-pointers and eight-of-10 free throws. Broermann also handed out an assist and did not commit a turnover in 30 minutes against Capital's switching defenses.

"Last year, Zach was a 47-percent three-point shooter and led the league in three-point shooting," Reule said. "We've been talking about how he can make things happen and tonight was the night he got hot. And he did a great job of taking care of the basketball and recognizing their switching defenses."

The Quakers never trailed. Broermann hit two treys as WC jumped to a 16-5 lead. Capital muscled the ball inside to 6-7 forward Jake Meisler, who responded with a pair of buckets to reduce Wilmington's lead to 16-11. Wilmington's swarming defense and Capital's myriad of defensive looks made points a precious commodity for the balance of the half. After the Crusaders climbed to within two at 1:45, Nick Berter (Cincinnati/Reading) hit a three-pointer and Eric Stirling (Brooklyn, N.Y./LaSalle Academy) connected on a pair of free throws to give WC a 33-27 halftime lead.

After Meisler scored to open the second half and slice Wilmington's lead to four, Stirling hit twice from the charity stripe, Brett Carpenter (Marshalville/Smithville) stuck a jumper and Broermann buried two threes as Wilmington opened a 47-31 lead at 16:12. Scott Walters (Mentor/Perry) scored to give WC what proved to be its largest lead of the game, 51-33, with 14:20 to play.

he Crusaders (12-13), who came to Wilmington with a four-game winning streak that featured a victory over Baldwin-Wallace, picked up the defensive pressure and gradually worked their way into the mix. Meisler scored to cut Wilmington's lead to 59-50 at 7:32. Freshman Nate Stahl's steal and dunk brought Capital to within 63-58 with 2:47 to play, but Broermann and Carpenter combined for 10 straight free throws in the final two minutes to slam the door on Capital's comeback hopes.

Stirling joined Broermann in double figures with 17 points, Carpenter scored six and Berter and Josh Rohrbacher (Columbus/Beechcroft) added five each. Capital was led by Meisler's 21 points. Stahl, who averaged 21.5 points against Wilmington in the regular-season series split, was held to seven points.

"It was a great team effort," Reule said. "Rohrbacher and Fred Harrison (Cleveland/East) had the primary assignments on Stahl, and everyone did a solid job of switching screens. He is a great shooter. We decided we were not going to help off him and let him get open looks. Our kids did a great job of recognizing and knowing where he was on the floor."

The Quakers now prepare for OAC regular-season champion Baldwin-Wallace. Wilmington won at Berea, 64-61, Jan. 7. The Yellow Jackets posted an 80-68 win at Fred Raizk Arena two weeks later.