This time, Pirates hold on for win

Sometimes a basketball game builds slowly. A quiet first half yields to a quicker tempo as the second half moves on. Then, as the end comes into view, the intensity builds and builds.

Such was the case Friday night at the Whitworth College Fieldhouse.

The host Pirates, bidding to stay in the Northwest Conference men’s playoff hunt, swamped George Fox with a late 9-0 run and went on to a 79-69 victory before 925.

It was a big shot by a Whitworth guard that ignited it, although from an unlikely source.

With the Pirates up 61-60, a little more than 3 minutes remaining and the shot clock winding down, point guard Bryan Williams buried a 21-footer from the right wing, igniting the game-breaking run. Williams, who leads the Pirates in assists, is only fifth on the team in scoring (10.6 per game).

“The coaches have been telling me to let the game come to me more,” said Williams, a junior point guard from Mead High. “I’ve been trying to do that and I think the other teams are aware of it. So they have been backing off a little bit and that’s giving me a little more room to shoot.

“Early in the second half, I had the ball late in the shot clock and didn’t finish. So it was a little bit of redemption.”

Redemption was a watchword for the Pirates. In the first meeting between the schools, Whitworth frittered away a 21-point second-half lead and lost in overtime.

Whitworth built a 12-point lead in the quiet first half – a half with few lead changes, only eight fouls called and the same number of foul shots. Then the Pirates (12-6 overall, 6-3 and third in the NWC) slowly let the Bruins crawl back. With 9 minutes left, the Bruins (11-7, 4-5) came all the way back, taking a 49-48 lead on Aaron Schmick’s free throw, part of his team-high 21 points.

From there neither team led by more than four (Whitworth, on Jon Young’s 3-pointer with 3:50 left, immediately answered by Phil Heu-Weller’s 3) until the final surge.

It was a surge powered by defense – Whitworth played a new zone the final 5 minutes, according to Williams – and opportune offense.

“We established the inside game early and, when they clamped down on that, they dared us to make outside shots,” Whitworth coach Jim Hayford said. “Our guards made them when we needed them.”

After Williams’ long shot, the Pirates came up with three stops in a row. Those led to six consecutive points by Lance Pecht, who finished with a game-high 23 – along with 12 rebounds.

Whitworth’s five starters all scored from there to the finish, appropriate since they all were in double figures, with Young and Kevin Hasenfus, who grabbed 10 rebounds, adding 15 and Williams and George Tucker chipping in 12.

Women

Whitworth 66, George Fox 57

For the second consecutive time this season, the Pirates (11-6, 5-4 in NWC) had a halftime lead over the Bruins (15-3, 6-3), ranked as high as 10th in the NCAA Division III polls.

In Oregon, the lead was two. This time it was 14.

In both, the Bruins shot their way back into it – the last time all the way to an easy win. But, after Kim Leith’s 3-pointer with 9:40 left cut the Pirates lead to one at 47-46, the Bruins squandered two chances to take the lead – missing a layup and a 3-pointer. The Pirates took advantage over the next 5 minutes with Chelsea Combs’ two layups sandwiching eight consecutive points by Emily Hendrickson to pull back ahead by 10.

“The difference this time is we understood their runs better,” said Whitworth coach Helen Higgs. “The last time I tried to talk them through it, but you can’t do that with Fox, they score too quickly. This time we used more times outs.

“In one of them I emphasized you can’t play not to lose. They didn’t.”

Leith, who had eight points at half, led all scorers with 29, hitting 11 of 28 shots. Hendrickson paced Whitworth with 19, while Holly Ridings added 11.