Grove City men turn back Thiel in PAC warmup

The Tomcats, without two starters, suffered a 65-57 loss.

By BILL ALBRIGHT

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

GROVE CITY, Pa. — It wasn’t exactly a classic, but for the Grove City Wolverines, their 65-57 win over Thiel College Saturday afternoon was a big one heading into the Presidents’ Athletic Conference tournament.

“It was a nice win for us, but I never had the feeling that we had control of the game, especially with their size,” said Grove City coach Steve Lamie. “Going into the playoffs, it was nice to win one like this. They were without three of their top players and they still took us to the wire.”

Tomcats’ starters Brandon Mirizio and Nick Sefscik along with top reserve Nick Matviko were in street clothes, nursing injuries.

“With two starters out and our sixth man also out, I thought our guys did a great job putting themselves in a position to win the game with what we had on the floor,” said Thiel coach Tim Loomis.

During the first half, Thiel struggled on the offensive end of the floor, trailing by as many as 14 points midway through the period. Loomis felt it was more of a personnel matter than anything else.

“Tommy [Hall] is not good against a zone and that left [Joe] Herrmann and [Devon] Adams to do the scoring,” said Loomis.

Although they struggled offensively, the Tomcats, after trailing by as many as 14 points, cut their deficit to six at halftime, 26-20.

“When they went inside more in the second half, the foul count was 9-1 [in favor of Thiel] and that is not a knock on the officiating. We had no recourse but to go zone and hope they would have to shoot over the top and miss,” said Lamie. “They were in the double bonus for much of the second half and I felt that helped keep them in the game.”

The Wolverines again went on a scoring spurt to build their lead back to a 12, but the Thiel was able to get it back to a two-point game with 12 minutes remaining.

“We got a real big game from Ryan Gerber,” said Lamie. “He finally got untracked and hit some big shots. I thought that was a huge difference in the second half.”

Gerber hit back-to-back 3-pointers to stretch Grove City’s lead back to 12 points and the Wolverines took care of the rest of the business at the foul line.

“When you have big guys like they did, they have trouble guarding me,” said Gerber. “We couldn’t guard them because they were so big, but they couldn’t guard us because we are so small. It just so happened they had a big guy on me and I kind of like it when big guys are on me. I don’t know if it comes down to quickness or not. Maybe it is just a guard mentality.”

Gerber led the Wolverines with 21 points, while Shawn Carr added 15 and Ryan Gibson 11.

For Thiel, Joe Herrmann came on strong in the second half to lead all scorers with 27 points and Keebo Dowe added 10.