Whitworth's First Half Proves Difference In Defensive Struggle

Whitworth's First Half Proves Difference In Defensive Struggle

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FOREST GROVE – Whitworth gained the upper hand in the second half of a defensive struggle in the Northwest Conference men's opener for both teams Friday as the Pirates rolled to a 65-52 victory over Pacific at the Stoller Center.
 
The Pirates (7-3, 1-0 NWC) built their decisive cushion late in the first half, pulling away from a 13-13 tie at the 7:27 mark with an 11-2 over the next three minutes and eventually built up to a 31-21 halftime lead.  Pacific (7-3, 0-1 NWC) found scoring hard to come by all night, shooting a season low 27.4 percent for the game (17-62) and 25 percent in the second half.
 
Mitch Wettig (Jr., Bend, Ore.) led Pacific with his first double-double of the season, scoring 13 points to go along with 10 rebounds.  Daniel Zitani (Sr., Oakland, Calif.) finished with 10 points, but was held well below his league-leading averages of 21.1 points and 8.8 rebounds per game.  The Boxers managed just 5 of 26 from three-point range and 13 of 21 from the free throw line.  They were also outrebounded by the Pirates 53-40.
 
Dustin McConnell led four Whitworth players in double figures with 14 points.  Colton McCargar and Christian Jurlina both added 12 points while George Valle had a double-double of 11 points and 12 rebounds.  Whitworth finished the night shooting 38.1 percent from the field (24-63), 4 of 16 from three-point range and 13 of 19 from the free throw line.
 
Whitworth led the game from start to finish, but the beginning of the game proved close with four ties over the first 13 minutes of the contest.  After trailing by as much as four points, Zitani tied the game at 13-13 with two free throws.  Adam Wilks started what proved to be the decisive 11-2 run with a lay-in at the 6:46 mark and closed it out with a three-point play with 4:52 to go. 
 
Cameron Hayes (Sr., Milton, Wash.) stopped the run with two free throws with just under four minutes left and cut the lead to five with a short-range jumper on the Boxers' next possession, but the Pirates replied with four straight of their own to take a 31-21 lead into halftime.
 
Pacific struggled to keep the game close in the second half, coming within 34-26 on Brandon Littlefield's (So., Henderson, Nev.) jumper with 16:17 to go.  The Pirates scored seven of the next nine points, building a 15-point advantage on Jurlina's lay-in with 11:03 to go.  A lay-in by Budweiser Hawkins (Sr., Las Vegas, Nev.) stopped a potential run, but McConnell's lay-in on their next possession started an 8-0 run that gave Whitworth their largest lead of the game, 50-31, with 7:38 left.
 
The Boxers managed to close within 11 points late when Wettig's three-pointer made it a 61-50 lead with 1:38 left.
 
The loss snapped a six-game win streak for the Boxers that dated back to the Boxers' 53-35 win over Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Nov. 22.  The win streak was the Boxers' longest since the 1999-2000 season.
 
Pacific will compete their weekend of Whits on Saturday, hosting Whitman for a 6 p.m. match-up.  Live audio and video webcasts will be available at GoBoxers.com.
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