WINONA LAKE – Hosting the defending national champions and current No. 1 team in the country, the Grace College Lancers – particularly junior point guard Logan Irwin – got off to a great start Tuesday night. If only they shot the ball that well the entire game. In a highly-anticipated Crossroads League matchup at the Manahan Orthopaedic Capital Center, the 18th-ranked Lancers raced out to leads of 11-2 and 20-8 in front of an energetic crowd. After making just 8 of 26 shots in the second half, however, the Lancers fell 62-55, missing out on a chance to be tied for first place in the league standings. “I won’t fault us for effort,” said veteran Grace College coach Jim Kessler, whose team fell to 17-6 overall and 7-4 in the highly-respected Crossroads League. “I thought we were mentally ready, and we played with purpose and intensity. “To beat Wesleyan, you have to make shots,” continued Kessler. “We made shots in the first half, but struggled in the second half.” Irwin scored the Lancers’ first nine points, all from the arc, and his fourth trey gave Grace a 20-8 advantage, the largest lead of the game for either team. Leading the Lancers to a 31-27 lead at halftime, Irwin scored 18 points in the first 20 minutes of play, making 6 of 9 shots overall and 5 of 6 attempts from three-point range. Irwin ended up scoring a game-high 27 points, but was only 2 of 4 from the field in the second half and didn’t attempt a shot from the arc after the intermission. As a team, the Lancers were 10 of 22 overall in the first half, including a 5-of-10 effort from three-point range. In the second half, Grace was 8 of 26 overall and 1 of 10 from the arc. Despite their second-half shooting woes, the Lancers were able to keep the game close, and the Wildcats never led by more than eight points. Adding to Grace’s offensive struggles were a season-high 22 turnovers “Against the No. 1 team in the country, you can’t have 22 turnovers,” said Kessler. “We beat them on the boards (34-24) and played well defensively, you just can’t turn the ball over like that.” Junior Brandon Vanderhegghen scored 13 points and gabbed a game-high 11 rebounds in the loss, while senior Niko Read and freshman Chad Hoffer scored six and five points, respectively. Six-foot-11 senior Dennis Williams, who scored a career-high 26 points in Grace’s five-point loss at Wesleyan on Dec. 2, rounded out the Lancers’ scoring Tuesday with four points. He played 29 minutes, but took just three shots this time around. “They double-teamed him all night,” said Kessler when asked about how Wesleyan defended Williams this time. The Wildcats, who used a key 10-2 run in the second half to secure the win, got 15 points from junior Jonny Marlin and 11 points each from sophomore Bob Peters and freshman Jacob Johnson. Senior D.J. Bettinger scored seven points for Wesleyan, while sophomore Lane Mahurin and junior Aaron Murray scored six points each. Senior Zac Vandewater, Irwin’s high school teammate at Whitko, scored four points and grabbed six rebounds for the Wildcats. With the win, Wesleyan is now 21-2 overall and 9-2 in league play. Bethel, ranked No. 7 in the latest NAIA Div. II poll, and No. 13 St. Francis are 8-3 in the Crossroads League. The Lancers are in action again Saturday at Goshen, while Wesleyan hosts St. Francis.
