Area men
Call it execution by execution.
The Whitworth Pirates put together 18 minutes of near-perfect offensive execution Saturday night, using the stretch to energize an easy 78-61 victory over Pacific Lutheran.
The crowd of 1,085 at the Fieldhouse saw the Pirates outscore the Lutes 41-9 in the final 10 minutes of the first half and the first 8 of the second on senior night.
Seniors Lance Pecht and George Tucker applied the knockouts.
Pecht, who scored a Northwest Conference season-low 11 points in PLU’s 81-72 upset in Tacoma last month, topped that in the game’s first 12 minutes before finishing with a team-high 25.
“We all came out aggressive tonight because we wanted redemption,” Pecht said.
“We started a little slow, though,” Tucker said, before pinpointing the beginning of the run. “When we switched defenses – went to a zone – it sort of scattered them on both ends.”
Tucker knifed through the scattered defenders time after time to finish with 15 in his last regular-season game in Spokane.
The Pirates, third in the NWC at 11-3 (17-6 overall), will finish at worst second in the conference if they win next week’s final two league games. They would then host the conference tournament’s first round.
If they do, the improvement of 6-foot-8 center Kevin Hasenfus will have played a huge part. The junior, who yielded his usual starting spot to senior Antonio McClinon (who scored the game’s last basket), dominated inside against the smaller Lutes (5-18, 4-10). How dominant? Sixteen points and 10 rebounds in 28 minutes.
“We expect Kevin to do that every night, to put on the hard hat and go to work,” Pecht said. “We need him to get those tough rebounds.”
“When he plays like that,” Tucker added, “we usually clean up.”
The Lutes were handicapped by the loss of leading scorer Drew Cardwell, who had 24 points and eight rebounds in the first game. Cardwell hurt his foot while scoring 20 against Whitman on Friday night and did not suit up.
But even at full strength, PLU would have been hard-pressed to stop a Pirates team that shot 16 for 27 from the floor in each half, and 50 percent from outside the arc in the opening 20 minutes.
Tucker finished with seven assists and Whitworth used second-half layups to pull away.
Joel Ryman scored 16 points and Jeremy Mangum had 11 points and 13 assists as five Sasquatch (18-5, 7-2) scored in double figures in Community Colleges of Spokane’s 80-60 win over Wenatchee Valley (4-18, 3-6) in Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges action at Spokane Falls CC.
Travis Gabbidon hit an off-balance 15-footer while being fouled with 0.8 seconds left and added the free throw as North Idaho (19-7, 9-5) blew a 17-point lead in the final 6:15 of regulation en route to an 85-84 loss to Southern Idaho (20-4, 11-1) in Scenic West Athletic Conference play at Coeur d’Alene.