Second Half the Difference as Owls Top Geoducks
The visiting Oregon Tech Owls stretched a one-point halftime lead into an 11-point advantage with seven minutes to play and held off The Evergreen State College down the stretch to take an 82-74 Cascade Collegiate Conference men's basketball win on Friday night inside Costantino Recreation Center.
Tyler Hieb scored 18 points and Mitchell Fink added 17 points, eight assists and six steals in leading the No. 19-ranked Owls (9-4 overall, 2-1 CCC) to the victory. Ryan Quigley tallied game highs of 19 points and nine rebounds for the Geoducks (1-9, 0-3).
Oregon Tech led by as many as nine points less than eight minutes into the opening half, but the Geoducks scored 11 of the period's final 13 points to trail just 34-33 at the intermission. In fact, Evergreen probably should have had a lead at the break but was just 9-for-20 at the foul line in the opening 20 minutes..
The visitors never trailed in the second half, though the Geoducks cut their deficit to one point on several occasions.
Oregon Tech finally opened up its first double-dit lead at 56-44 on a Zach Bernards three-pointer with 7:23 remaining. It's largest lead of the contest, 73-59, came on fast break layin by Hieb with 5:19 to play.
Evergreen pulled to within five at 79-74 on a Jaurence Chisholm three-point play with 21 seconds left, but Fink went 3-for-4 at the foul line in the waning moments to ice the victory.
Bernards scored 10 points off the bench to finish as the third Oregon Tech player in double figures, and Andrew Weber led his team with seven rebounds. The Owls shot 50 percent overall (28-for-56) and enjoyed a slight 37-36 edge in rebounding.
Joining Quigley in double figures for the Geoducks were Pat Ling with 12 points, Kevin Clayton Jr. with 11 and Dustin Meade with 10. The Geoducks shot 46 percent overall (27-for-59), but just 53 percent (16-for-30) at the foul line.
Evergreen and Oregon Tech both play tomorrow, the Geoducks hosting Southern Oregon and the Owls traveling to Kirkland to face Northwest University.