Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
WINONA LAKE -ÊWhen the Grace College and Bethel College men's basketball teams square off, it's always a battle.
"It's like the old days, the old Claypool and Silver Lake games," said Grace College coach Jim Kessler. "The games are usually not decided until the end. They're almost always close."
And Thursday night's game was no different.
But luckily for Grace, the Lancers were the ones on the winning end of the 103-99 score.
And the night belonged to senior Matt Moore. Moore, who leads the Lancers and the Mid-Central Conference in assists, had a career night as he scored 27 points, dished out 10 assists and pulled down six rebounds.
Bethel scored the first two baskets of the game to take a 4-0 lead. But Moore put the Lancers right back in it when he netted a three-pointer at the 18:45 mark to make the score 4-3.
However, Bethel still held a lead. The Pilots kept plugging away, and before long they built an eight-point lead, 18-10.
With 12:15 left in the half, Bethel was up 24-16. Then the Lancer offense kicked into overdrive.
"Bethel came out loaded for bear," said Kessler. "They came at us with all kinds of things. But as well as they played early, we weathered the storm. There were a couple times I was watching and thought 'How far are they up now?' Then I'd look up and realize they were only up by four or five."
Behind hot shooting from Andrew Kipsey and Matt Abernethy, the Lancers pulled to within three, 24-21.
At the 11:41 point, Moore drained a trey to tie the score at 24-all. Less than two minutes later, he hit another basket to give Grace its first lead of the game, 26-24.
The squads traded baskets for the next several minutes, and with 4:55 left in the half, Bethel held a 38-37 advantage.
That is, until Joe Saunders scored two straight baskets to give the Lancers a 41-38 lead. Grace held on to the lead through the last four minutes of play and went into the halftime break with a 52-49 lead.
While the Pilots held MCC leading scorer Matt Abernethy to just seven points in the first half, they couldn't contain him early in the second half.
After Bethel's Joel Grindle hit a basket to open the half, Abernethy netted two straight baskets to extend Grace's lead to five, 56-51.
But Bethel clawed its way back.
At the 13:34 mark, Bethel's Chris Adkins netted a three-pointer to give the Pilots a 62-61 lead, their first since late in the first half.
The Pilots increased their lead to four, 73-69 with 10:05 left in the half, but Moore closed the gap by sinking another basket from behind the three-point arc.
Sanders followed that with another basket at 9:07 to give the Lancers a lead they held for the remainder of the game.
Bethel got to within four in the waning minutes of play, but the Lancers never allowed them to get any closer.
"This was a much much needed win," said Kessler. "We have played well in a number of games. If we would have shot our average free throw percentage in two of them, we would have had two more wins. But to our credit, we kept focused and practiced hard.
"Tonight we displayed more poise than we have in the past few games. Poise is something that helps you finish games."
Along with Moore's 27 points, Saunders added 20 points (including three dunks), 10 rebounds, and four blocked shots. Matt ABernethy added 16, and Derric Isensee chipped in 11 points for the Lancers.
TIme Ritter led the Pilots with 25 points, while David Keister added 21 and Chris Adkins had 20. Joel Grindle chipped in 16.
For the game, Grace shot 63 percent (36 of 57) from the floor and 53 percent (8 of 15) from behind the three-point arc.
The win marks Grace's first in the Mid-Central Conference and 12th overall. Bethel is now 2-3 in MCC play and 14-9 overall. Grace hosts NAIA No. 7 Taylor Saturday at 3 p.m.
GRACE COLLEGE 103 BETHEL COLLEGE 99
Bethel 49 50 - 99
Grace 52 51 - 103
Bethel FG FT R A S Pts
Bontreger 0-1 0-0 1 6 1 0
Je. Weimer 2-4 0-0 0 2 1 6
Grindle 5-9 6-8 8 1 0 16
Parker 2-8 2-25 5 2 0 6
Ritter 9-15 5-6 1 5 0 25
Swartz 2-5 0-0 0 0 1 5
Bradley 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 0
Anderson 0-2 0-0 0 0 1 0
Keister 9-14 3-4 5 0 3 21
Jo. Weimer 0-1 0-0 1 0 0 0
Ziegler 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Totals 36-71 18-22 29 18 9 99
Grace FG FT R A S Pts.
Moore 7-12 10-14 6 10 0 27
O'Dell 2-4 0-0 2 2 1 6
Abernethy 7-12 2-5 7 2 1 16
Saunders 9-11 2-4 10 2 0 20
Kipsey 3-5 0-0 4 3 0 7
Smith 1-3 6-8 3 1 0 9
Isensee 4-6 2-2 2 4 0 11
Compson 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Walter 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Bailey 3-4 1-2 4 1 0 7
Bender 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Ryan 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Totals 36-57 23-35 39 25 1 103
Three-point goals -ÊBethel 9-20 (Adkins 4-6, Swartz 1-2, Bontreger 0-1, Je. Weimer 2-4, Jo. Wiemer 0-1, Parker 0-2, Ritter 2-4), Grace 8-15 (Smith 1-2, O'Dell 2-2, Isensee 1-2, Moore 3-6, Kipsey 1-3). Turnovers -ÊBethel 10, Grace 17. Fouls -ÊBethel 27, Grace 19. Fouled out -ÊKeister, Ritter. Blocked shots -ÊBethel 1 (Grindle), Grace 5 (Saunders 4, Abernethy 1).
