WALLA WALLA, Wash. – Rebounding and clutch plays by visiting Lewis & Clark College led to the downfall of Whitman College's men's basketball team Thursday night in the semifinal round of the Northwest Conference postseason tournament as the No. 3-seeded Pioneers upset the second-seed Missionaries, 84-73, at the Sherwood Athletics Center.
Lewis & Clark (16-10) will move on to the conference championship game against the other semifinal winner, top-seeded Whitworth University, with Thursday's win while the Missionaries (20-6) saw a 10-game win streak come to a close and must now wait to see if it will gain a spot in the NCAA Division III tournament with an at-large bid.
Whitman didn't falter Thursday, but rather Lewis & Clark was just a bit more opportunistic and hit the clutch shot when it was needed.
First-half action went back and forth with the lead changing hands five times while also seeing the score at a deadlock six times. There were signs, however, that this might have just been the Pioneers' night.
The M's stretched a one-point lead to four, 22-18, on a
Christian McDonald 3-pointer and then padded the advantage on a
Tim Howell steal and layup. The Pios answered with a layup to trim Whitman's edge to four then cut that in half with a layup off a second-chance opportunity. A Whitman turnover led to yet another layup to tie the score and then Serg Ovchinnikov drained a 3-pointer after an L&C defensive rebound to break the tie. And that wouldn't be the last time a long-range bomb would deflate the Whitman faithful that filled the stands.
Lewis & Clark managed, mostly, to hold on to its lead over the next seven minutes.
Tochi Oti cut a four-point M's deficit in half with a layup, and following a series of non-scoring possessions Howell knocked down the second of two free throws to bring Whitman back within a point at 37-36.
Once again a clutch 3-pointer for L&C erased Whitman's momentum, though, and led to the visitors taking a 43-40 lead into the intermission.
Ready to storm back coming out of the break, Whitman's
Jackson Clough rained down a 3-pointer from the right wing to open the second half scoring and tie the game for the eighth time.
But dang it, the Pioneers hit not just one trey to answer, but followed the first with another after a one-and-done Whitman possession.
Still, the Missionaries fought back, tying the score at 57-57 at the 12:09 mark. And yet again, an L&C 3-pointer changed the momentum.
Still. The Missionaries fought back. A McDonald jumper pulled Whitman even, 63-63, with 8:45 remaining. And yet,
yet again a Pioneer long-range shot was the response.
And still. Yes, Whitman battled back from a five-point deficit to pull within two, 71-69, on another McDonald jumper. This time, however, it was a second-chance layup followed by a defensive rebound and another layup after a Whitman miss that was likely the proverbial dagger.
The M's cut into that six-point deficit by a point, but never got closer as Lewis & Clark hit 9-of-10 from the free-throw line over the final 96 seconds to ice the upset.
McDonald paced Whitman with a 14-point night and got help from Oti and Clough who each added 13 points.
Evan Martin scored eight points and pulled down a team-high eight rebounds for the M's.
Jason Luhnow from Lewis & Clark led all scorers with 27 points including a perfect 4-for-4 from beyond the arc. Jonathan Boddie added 18 to the Pios' cause as did Ovchinnikov with 12 points, six of which came from long range.
Rebounding was dominated by L&C which finished with a 48-30 advantage including 16 offensive boards, leading to 20 second-chance points. The Pios seemed to also take advantage of every Whitman turnover, of which there were only 13. But the visitors, who had 20 turnovers themselves, turned those few miscues into 20 points.
Whitman falls out of the running for the league's automatic bid into the NCAA tournament and must now await Selection Sunday to see if that at-large bid will be extended.
