First Posted: 2/28/2015
LIMA — Let the waiting begin.
The University of Northwestern Ohio failed to grab an automatic berth into the national NAIA tournament when the Racers dropped a 95-85 contest to No. 4 ranked Cornerstone on Saturday in the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference tournament.
The WHAC receives two automatic entries to the NAIA tournament and Cornerstone grabbed one and the winner of Davenport and Aquinas will get the second. UNOH, ranked No. 16 in the most recent coaches’ national poll, now has to wait until Wednesday when the at-large selections are announced to see if they get to go to Branson, MO for the tournament.
The Racers (25-7) fell behind early and were forced to play catch-up the entire game. And the key to playing catch-up is getting defensive stops and UNOH never got the one stop they needed to put them back into the lead.
Perhaps no stretch of play exemplified the problem the Racers faced in trying to stop the Golden Eagles than the opening moments of the second half.
UNOH was down 49-44 after the first half and came out and used a 10-5 run to tie the game up at 54 points each. But Cornerstone immediately went on an 8-0 run to grab control and UNOH never got closer than six points the rest of the way.
Despite intense defensive pressure and physical play, both teams shot the ball extremely well in the contest.
The Golden Eagles (27-5) hit 31-of-55 from the floor for 56 percent and that included 10-of-21 on 3-point shots. They also converted 23-of-28 from the free throw line god for 82 percent.
“They hit 61 percent on two’s, 47 percent on three’s, and they also don’t miss free throws,” UNOH coach Chris Adams said. “That’s a tough team to beat.”
The Racers also shot the ball extremely well as they hit 52 percent on 32 of 61 from the field and that included 9-of-18 from behind the three-point line. The Racers converted 12-of-16 from the charity stripe.
Aaron Cross (Ada) paced the Racers with a game-high 25-point effort. Lawrence Jackson added 19 and Ed Jenkins chipped in with 15 points for UNOH.
The Golden Eagles got four players in double digits led by Kyle Steigenga with 24 points. Ben Lanning totaled 21 points and Cory Cox had 15 and Michael McLaughlin added 14 to the Cornerstone total.
“McLaughlin was the difference in the game, he made plays and hit a couple of big threes.” Adams said.
“Hats off to them and the way they shot the ball; we would beat a lot of teams shooting the way we did today. That’s why they are the number four team in the country. We now have to wait until Wednesday to see if we get an at-large bid.”
