Pirates continue to roll

With his Whitworth University men’s basketball team having checked “win another Northwest Conference regular-season title” off its to-do list the night before, Jim Hayford moved quickly Saturday morning to get on top of any complacency issues that might have surfaced.

Still perturbed by the tepid defensive approach his team used in securing the outright conference title with a comeback win over Puget Sound on Friday night, the Pirates’ head coach called an early-morning practice Saturday.

His Bucs responded in a big way later in the day when they put together one of their most energetic and well-balanced efforts of this season in blistering Pacific Lutheran 97-55 in front of a Whitworth Fieldhouse crowd of 1,380.

Point guard Eric Beal, one of four seniors making his final home-court appearance of the regular season, scored a game-high 28 points and backup center Felix Friedt added 18 as the eighth-ranked Pirates (21-2, 14-0 NWC) ran their school-record winning streak to 19 by dominating the Lutes (8-13, 6-8) from tipoff to final buzzer.

“I lit them up pretty good this morning,” Hayford said in reference to Saturday morning’s assembly. “We had a pretty spirited game-day practice, because we weren’t pleased with some of our defense the night before.”

The defensive indifference the Bucs displayed in Friday night’s 82-71 win over UPS failed to surface less than 24 hours later as they charged to an early 18-8 lead and never eased up.

Twelve players scored on a Senior Night that left Hayford elated.

“This feels really good,” he said. “Everybody (on the roster) played, everybody scored and everybody played well.”

Senior center Nate Montgomery also had another big game for the Bucs, scoring 16 points and chasing down nine rebounds. But it was the outside shooting and all-around play of Beal that probably impressed most of those in attendance.

The 5-foot-11 first-year transfer buried 7 of 10 shots from 3-point range – including five straight during one stretch of the second half – to come within two points of equaling the career-high 30 points he scored against George Fox.

Whitworth, which has already secured the right to host the first two rounds of the NWC tournament (Feb. 25 and 27), will try to extend its school-record winning streak later this week when it closes regular-season play with conference games at Whitman on Tuesday and Linfield on Saturday.