In a battle of the Panthers, KWC never trailed as they took down Ohio Dominican Saturday by a score of 67-45. Wesleyan outscored ODU 36-19 in the opening half and cruised in the final 20 minutes to take the New Years Day win.
With the win Wesleyan moves to 8-5 on the year and back to .500 (3-3) in G-MAC play. Ohio Dominican falls to 3-9 (1-4 G-MAC).
Up 5-0 early in the opening half, JoMel Boyd scored six straight points to give KWC an 11-3 lead with 14:49 to go in the first half. Just a few minutes later Sasha Sukhanov put in a hook shot to extend the Panthers lead to 17-3 just nine minutes into the game. Wesleyan was extremely strong on defense in the first 10 minutes of play, holding ODU to just 1-10 shooting over that time period. Following some back and forth action, Ben Sisson scored four straight points to put KWC up 31-13 with 3:37 left to go in the half. Nathan Boyle hit a three at the first half buzzer and KWC went into the break up 36-19.
After a quick 6-0 run by ODU to start the second half, Antonio Thomas picked an Ohio Dominican guard’s pocket and took it all the way to stop the bleeding. Battaile followed with a three pointer to quickly extend the lead back to 16. Roland gave Wesleyan a 20-point lead with a three pointer with 14:20 to go in the game. Up 55-38 with 11:12 to go, Wesleyan hit four unanswered three pointers to push their lead up to 29. Wesleyan then emptied their bench and cruised to the finish line to win by 22.
Wesleyan had very balanced scoring as all but two individuals scored in the contest, led by Jordan Roland with 15 and Ben Sisson with 10. Wyatt Battaile hauled in eight boards and also led the way with seven assists.
KWC shot 26-61 (42.6%) from the field and 11-32 (34.4%) from three. ODU shot 17-51 (33.3%) from the field and a mere 4-23 (17.4%) from behind the arc. Wesleyan continued their recent trend of lack of free throw shooting, shooting just four in the contest, making all four.
Kentucky Wesleyan will be back in action on Monday when they host Cedarville. Tipoff is set for 7:45 p.m. at the Owensboro Sportscenter.
