Second Half Rally Nets Evergreen the Victory
The Evergreen State College rallied from a halftime deficit Saturday night to beat the visiting Walla Walla University Wolves, 75-69, in Cascade Collegiate Conference men's basketball action inside Costantino Recreation Center.
Pat Ling scored a game-high 22 points and added six assists and four steals to lead the Geoducks (3-16 overall, 2-8 CCC). Other standouts for the hosts were Ryan Quigley with 18 points, six rebounds and four steals, and Jaurence Chisholm with 13 points and five rebounds.
Michael Isotalo was 5-for-6 from beyond the three-point line to lead Walla Walla with 18 points, while Alec Calloway scored 17 and Roy Zavala contributed 10 points, five assists and three steals.
Walla Walla broke away from an early 4-4 tie by scoring seven unanswered points, including the first of a trio of three-point baskets by Calloway. The Wolves led by as many as eight points in the opening half before the Geoducks rallied to tie the score at 25-25 on Quigley's finish at the rim with 2:05 on the clock. Still, the visitors took a 31-27 lead into the half following three-point baskets by Isotalo and Cameron Silver.
Trailing by eight points five minutes into the final period, the Geoducks changed the momentum with an effective half-court trap. They went on a 13-4 run to take their first lead of the game at 44-43 on Ling's layup with 12:26 remaining, and other than two ties managed to stay on top the rest of the way. Evergreen iced the victory at the foul line, going 6-for-6 in the final 1:04.
"What we really wanted to do was speed them up in the half court and not let them look around so much, because they were picking apart the zone (in the first half) a little bit," Evergreen head coach Tim Malroy said of the half court trap. "I do think it turned the tide. We've done a good job the last couple games of making some adjustments at halftime and executing those adjustments, every player."
The Geoducks shot 50 percent (28-for-56) overall and were an impressive 18-for-20 at the foul line. Walla Walla also shot 50 percent (27-for-54) but were just 5-for-13 at the charity stripe. The Wolves enjoyed a slight 32-28 rebounding edge.
The two teams will square off in another conference game at 4 p.m. at the CRC gym.