The men’s basketball team made it back into the win column on Saturday with a hard-fought, 71-67 overtime victory over a scrappy Roger Williams (RWU) squad. With the win, Wesleyan improved to 2-5 on the season and snapped a six-game overtime losing streak.

“It was a huge win,” said Gabe Gonzalez-Kreisberg ’09. “We know we’ve been improving pretty consistently since Nov. 1, and it was important to win a tight game against a good opponent, especially at home.”
Roger Williams opened the game with a 9-2 run, with all nine points coming on three-point baskets. The Rhode Island squad led by 11 midway through the first half and extended its lead to 12 with 6:30 to play, 26-14.

Wesleyan then scored the next eight points to whittle the deficit down to four with just under three minutes remaining. With 1:35 left, the Hawks held a 30-26 lead. A three-pointer by Ezaakk Diggs ’09 cut the lead to one, and RWU was unable to launch a three before the shot clock expired. The teams headed into halftime with Roger Williams clinging to a slim 30-29 lead and Wesleyan having scored 15 of the last 19 points.

The Cardinals picked up right where they left off to open the second half. Will Griffin ’08 sank a jumper just under a minute in to give Wesleyan its first lead of the game, 31-30, and ignited a 13-4 Wesleyan run. The Cardinals did not trail again for the rest of the game.

Midway through the half, with a chance to extend its lead to double digits, Wesleyan missed four shots—including two layups—in a 16-second span. Roger Williams then scored 12 of the next 17 points to cut Wesleyan’s lead to one. Two free throws by Eric Winters ’08 gave Wesleyan a three-point cushion with 3:04 left, but another three-pointer by the Hawks—their ninth of the game—tied the score at 60-60 with 2:33 to play.

Wesleyan later regained the lead on a tip-in. Leading 62-60, Wesleyan’s Stan Grayson ’09 blocked a potential game-tying Roger Williams layup with under five seconds remaining. The Hawks responded by in-bounding the ball and driving down the lane for a game-tying jumper as time expired, sending the Cards into overtime for their second straight game.

After a missed three-pointer by Roger Williams to open the half, a layup from Grayson and a free throw gave the Cardinals a three-point cushion. A block by Griffin at the other end led to a Grayson fast-break layup and a five-point lead. Later in the period, after the Hawks missed two more treys, a layup from Collins extended Wesleyan’s lead to 70-62. Roger Williams sank a free throw to finally get on the board with just over a minute left and made a layup shortly thereafter. Following a foul, Nick Pelletier ’08 made one of two from the line to give the Cardinals a 71-65 lead with 24 seconds left. 14 seconds later, Winters, who had been 11-for-11 from the charity stripe, missed a pair of free throws. A late Roger Williams layup cut the lead to 71-67 with five seconds remaining, but Wesleyan dribbled out the clock for the hard-fought victory.

Throughout the game, Wesleyan made several clutch free throws, a sharp contrast to Wednesday’s loss to Eastern Connecticut State. Against ECSU, Wesleyan made just 13 of 28 free throws, including one of six in the second overtime. This time, the Cardinals sank 19 of 24 shots from the line, including 16 of 17 in regulation.

In addition, the Cardinals had five players reach double figures in scoring, led by a team-high 14 points from Griffin. Pelletier recorded his fourth double-double of the season with 11 points and 15 rebounds. Behind strong nights from Griffin (6-of-10 shooting), Collins (6-of-7) and Grayson (5-of-6), Wesleyan finished with its second-highest shooting percentage of the season, 42.1 percent. The Cardinals’ 79.2 free-throw percentage marked a season high much stronger than their season average of 63.4 percent.

“We would like to shoot better from the line than we have this season,” Gonzalez-Kreisberg said. “But we made some big foul shots down the stretch in the Roger Williams game. Free throws really make the difference in close games, so we need to take advantage of every chance we get from the line.”

Wesleyan will attempt to build on the momentum from its win on Thursday, when it hosts Emmanuel College. The Cardinals will travel to Fisher College on Saturday and to Albertus Magnus the following Monday in their final action of the semester.