Pirates Roll Into Quarters Whitworth Beats Midamerica Nazarene, 81-71

As a reward for getting to the Elite Eight in the NAIA Division II basketball playoffs, what will the Whitworth College Pirates receive?

A Saturday night date with the host school.

The Pirates defeated MidAmerica Nazarene College of Olathe, Kan., 81-71 Friday night to advance to the tournament quarterfinals.

Before the Pirates’ win, Northwest Nazarene College (19-12), the host school, beat Trinity Intern, 97-81.

Crowd noise figures to be at a maximum for tonight’s contest, scheduled to start at 7 PST. Next to Northwest Nazarene, Whitworth has the largest contingent of fans.

“It will take a strong mental effort to withstand some of that (noise),” Whitworth coach Warren Friedrichs said.

“I watched some of Northwest Nazarene’s game before that ended, and the crowd got in there and just took Trinity out of their game.”

Fourth-ranked Whitworth overcame a 43-34 deficit early in the second half to eliminate MidAmerica. An 18-7 burst gave the Pirates the lead for good, at 52-50.

“They did the very thing that we knew we had to prevent them from doing,” Pioneers’ coach Rocky Lamar said. “They got on fire.”

As has been the case all season, Whitworth got big baskets from more than one source. The Pirates ended up with four of five starters in double figures, while yet another bench player scored key baskets when they were hard to come by, this time in the first half.

Roman Wickers, Gabe Jones and Nate Dunham each scored 16 points for Whitworth, while Nate Williams added 13. Off the bench, Jeff Mix scored 10, six of which came in the first half.

The Pioneers shot 57 percent in the first half, hitting 5 of 9 from 3-point range, and took a 39-32 halftime lead. Whitworth shot an admirable 50 percent in the half, but connected on just 1 of 6 3-pointers.

What the Pioneers also did effectively was disrupt the ball-handling of Whitworth’s guards. MidAmerica Nazarene point guard Pete Carr stymied Williams and Sean Weston on numerous occasions and prevented Whitworth from running its transition game with efficiency.

“What we needed to do (in the second half) was have better shot selection while preventing them from getting any easy looks at the basket,” Friedrichs said.

Wickers, who played just 12 minutes in Thursday night’s first-round win against Howard Payne because of foul trouble, struggled early against MidAmerica Nazarene.

“They surprised me because they were better than what I thought,” Wickers said.

The Pioneers, whose nine-player rotation consists of four freshman, were led by Darin Meyer and Nate Wiens, who scored 12 points apiece.

Whitworth 81, MidAmerica Nazarene 71

Whitworth (24-4) - Williams 2-6 8-8 13, Wickers 6-13 4-5 16, Jones 4-6 7-8 16, Dunham 6-10 4-4 16, Arkills 2-3 1-2 5, Weston 0-2 2-2 2, Mix 5-7 0-0 10, Beckman 1-1 0-0 3. Totals 26-48 26-29 81.

MidAmerica Nazarene (20-17) - Carr 4-8 0-2 8, McClellan 4-9 0-0 8, Meyer 6-11 0-0 12, Blacklock 2-5 0-0 4, Fraley 2-5 1-1 7, Olson 3-7 0-0 8, Boone 2-3 2-3 6, Smith 3-5 0-0 6, Allen 0-0 0-0 0, Bartmess 0-0 0-0 0, Mattix 0-0 0-0 0, Wiens 4-7 0-1 12. Totals 30-60 3-7 71.

Halftime - MidAmerica Nazarene 39, Whitworth 32. 3-Point goals - Whitworth 3-14 (Beckman 1-1, Jones 1-3, Williams 1-4, Weston 0-1, Wickers 0-5), MidAmerica Nazarene 8-18 (Wiens 4-7, Fraley 2-4, Olson 2-6, Carr 0-1). Fouled out - Carr. Rebounds - Whitworth 30 (Wickers, Mix 6), MidAmerica Nazarene 28 (Meyer 11). Assists - Whitworth 12 (Williams 4), MidAmerica Nazarene 15 (Carr, Boone 4). Total fouls - Whitworth 16, MidAmerica Nazarene 25. Technicals - None. A - NA.

, DataTimes