KW takes two on Tabor’s home floor

The Tabor College men's basketball team lost a spot in the
conference standings with Saturday's 64-58 defeat at the hands of
Kansas Wesleyan. Meanwhile, the Tabor women lost their game by a score of 69-59.

In the men's game, the Coyote offense revolved around Trey Sims, who
scored 21 points on 10 field goal attempts, and the Wesleyan defense
focused on keeping the ball out of Zack Vanselow's reach?and more or
less succeeded for most of the night, limiting the Tabor
post-powerhouse to nine points on five shot attempts. Vanselow was
5-for-6 at the foul line.

But even without their big gun hitting
with his usual regularity, the Bluejays turned an eight point deficit
into a 25-25 tie late in the first half, and opened a 49-39 lead when
Jared Hett caught fire midway through the second half. Hett made it
35-34 with a right ring trey, and Lance Baar followed with an offensive
rebound and putback. Kyle de Blonk kept the drum beat going with a
pullup jumper. Hett opened the margin to six when he faked Melvin
Underwood into the air and scored a dribble-drive layup. He sniffed out
a jump ball win when a Wesleyan guard muffed a pass. On the subsequent
possession, Jordan Funk outfoxed two Coyotes for an offensive rebound
and was fouled, making one free throw for a 42-35 lead.

Hett
found Vanselow for a layup, and Funk scored a step-through layup?and
Hett drilled a 25-footer that gave Tabor its largest lead of the night
with just under nine minutes to go.

The Coyotes limited Tabor to
four points over the next eight minutes and rallied behind Sims, who
scored nine straight points and lifted KW to a 52-51 lead with a
3-pointer with four minutes left.

After Damon Dechant tied it at
53-53, Sims struck again with a triple over de Blonk's outstretched
hand, and the Coyotes finished the game with foul shots.?

Hett finished with 13 points, and Kyle Kroeker had ten. Willie McCarty had 16 for Wesleyan.

The
women's game hinged on Kansas Wesleyan's 37-28 run in the first half?a
run that saw Tabor trail by as much as 15 points before the
intermission. But after the break, Gina Hullet sparked the Bluejays to
an 11-3 run that brought Tabor within a point at 40-39. The Bluejays
forced a defensive stop on the Coyote possession, but reciprocated with
a turnover with 9:58 to go.

Jenni Vopat then knocked down a
long 2-point shot, and LaCole Wilkenson turned the sequence into the
game's watershed moment with a layup a moment later. Hullet hit two
foul shots, then threw in a dribble-drive layup, but the Coyotes
continued their scoring run, opening up a 54-47 lead on Wilkenson's
triple with six minutes left.

Hullet finished with 22 points and
Chelsea Malone scored 10, but Kayleen Dittmer put up 21 points to
cancel out Hullet's big night and the Coyotes secondary scoring proved
overwhelming. Wilkenson finished with 14 and Emily Luckeroth and
Khristy Santee each tallied 13.

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