By Victoria Ripple
Elm Staff Writer
Last Thursday, Jan. 27, the Shoremen came up with a victory to satisfy their fans after the long winter break. In a Centennial Conference game, Washington College defeated the Ursinus Bears 88-79 in a neck-and-neck match.
During the first half, both teams shot 10-of-19 from the three-point range while Ursinus was 4-for-9 and WC was 6-for-10. The Bears were barely ahead at halftime with the score of 35-34. With 19 minutes to go in the second half, Ursinus led 39-38; however, WC had seven straight points giving them the lead for the rest of the game. Shortly after, the Shoremen had a 10-3 run which giving them the biggest lead of the game at 76-63.
Junior Kevin Breslin had a game high of 19 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 assists. Sophomore Chris Soper and junior Mark DeBoy led WC’s bench points of 50 to Ursinus’ 9. Soper had a career best of 13 points and 6 rebounds, while DeBoy had 15 points. Senior Dylan Bernstein had five assists during the game for the Shoremen. WC shot 46 percent from the field while only having four turnovers to Ursinus’s 19. Furthermore, the Shoremen scored 23 points on turnovers while the Bears only scored two.
This past Saturday, Jan. 29, the Shoremen took a hard loss to McDaniel with a final score of 73-66. Most of the action happened in the second half when WC had a 14-point comeback ending with a free throw from Breslin. Still down by 14 with 10:05 remaining in the second half, WC went on a 22-6 run to gain their only lead of the second half with a score of 64-62. After a WC missed shot and a few turnovers the next time they scored was with 47 seconds left when Breslin made two free throws, leaving the score 70-66. McDaniel answered for themselves by making 3-of-4 from the free throw line in the final fifteen seconds.
Breslin led his team with 16 points and had five rebounds. Juniors Chris Olsen and Sal Schittino each had 12 points, while DeBoy and Bernstein each had four assists. Soper had 10 points, going 3-for-3 from the floor and making all four free throws as well as tallying five rebounds. WC outscored McDaniel 20-17 in points off turnovers and 31-23 in bench points. The Shoremen only had 16 turnovers to McDaniel’s 26. WC shot 37 percent from the field, 23% behind the arc, and 79 percent from the charity stripe.
This conference game brought WC’s record down to 6-13 overall and 5-7 in conference while improving McDaniel’s record to 10-8 overall and 7-4 in conference. This win for the Green Terror also snapped their 17 game losing streak in Chestertown; their last win being in 1982.
With only three weeks left, the Shoremen will need to play hard in order to win a playoff spot; however, Olsen is confident that they have what it takes to make it. “I know we have what it takes to get the job done. We had a tough loss against McDaniel, but I think we are playing with more confidence as of late. We need to build on the win we had last week against Ursinus for our road games against Haverford and Dickinson this week.”
“Each game is vital at this point,” Olsen continued, “and we can’t afford to rely on other teams to help us get into the playoffs. We are going take it a game at a time and not look ahead to the other games on the schedule.”
Unfortunately, the Shoremen only have two home games left, but Olsen encouraged students to come out and support the team in these games. “We thrive when we have the support of the students at the home games. It’s exciting to play in front of a large crowd and we could use the support when these teams come into our gym next week.”
The Shoremen play their next home game against Swarthmore at Wednesday, Feb. 9 at 8 p.m.