GETTYSBURG, Pa. – A 51-point first-half on nearly 60-percent shooting from three-point land pushed the Washington and Lee men's basketball team to an 83-55 season-opening win over Messiah at the Gettysburg Tip-Off Tournament on Friday.
HOW IT HAPPENED:
The Generals (1-0) attacked the Falcons (0-1) right from the opening tip-off and were relentless on both ends to lead by a 51-24 margin at the half. Caleb Thompson nailed a three for Messiah to open the scoring, but W&L countered with a 17-3 run to take an 11-point lead. Not long after, the Generals scored another 17 consecutive points across nearly four minutes of play to bolster their lead to 42-13 with 5:17 left in the first.
Both scoring runs saw balanced scoring for the Blue and White, as senior
Jack d'Entremont led the first stretch with four points, with sophomore
A.J. Thomas leading with five points in the second run. In total, seven different players scored in the opening run and six tallied points in the 17-0 run.
The second half was much more even, with the Generals outscoring the Falcons, 32-31, to yield the final score. Neither side saw an extended scoring run until an 8-0 W&L run from 9:04 to 6:12 was countered immediately with 10 straight Messiah points. W&L finished the game strong, defensively, as the team allowed zero points across the final 3:56 to close out the win.
TOP PERFORMERS:
d'Entremont led the way for the Blue and White offense with 18 points on an efficient 7-of-9 from the field, while adding 11 rebounds to notch a double-double. Senior
Robert DiSibio tallied 15 points and connected on 3-of-5 shots from long range, while first-year
Parker Neuenhaus rounded out the double-digit scorers with 13 on 6-of-8 shooting.
Sophomore
John Loughlin contributed six rebounds and led the team with five assists, and senior
Drew Harrell came down with four boards and tallied three steals.
Messiah was led by a 14-point outing by Evan Parker, who made 5-of-11 shots overall and 4-of-8 from deep. Bryce Coletti was the only other Falcon to reach the double-digit point mark, as he scored 10 points on 4-of-11 shooting to go along with eight rebounds.
NOTEWORTHY POINTS:
With his 15 points on Friday, DiSibio needs just two more points to become the 24th player in program history to reach 1,100 career points. DiSibio's three triples also put him just one away from tying Bryan Watkins '93 for the 10th-most made three-point field goals in program history (127).
d'Entremont's 18 points moved him closer to the next 100-point milestone in his quest for 1,000 career points, as the senior needs five more to reach the 700-point mark.
TEAM STATS:
W&L finished the game at 46.2 percent (30-65) shooting from the floor and 37.9 percent (11-29) from three-point range, but the Generals sizzled in the first half at 56.3 percent (18-32) overall and 58.8 percent (10-17) on three pointers. The Generals held the Falcons to 25.4 percent (17-67) shooting, with under 30 percent in both halves.
The Blue and White also held sizeable advantages in the game in bench points (39-15), second-chance points (18-5) and points in the paint (36-10).
UP NEXT:
The Generals will play in the Gettysburg Tip-Off Tournament championship game on Saturday at 4:00 p.m. against the winner of Friday's Gettysburg/Muskingum contest.
Nestled in the mountains of Virginia, Washington and Lee University is a proud member of NCAA Division III and the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. Founded in 1749, W&L is the ninth-oldest college in the United States and a top-ranked liberal arts university. With over 500 student-athletes in 24 varsity sports, the Generals have celebrated over 265 conference championships. Learn more about the Blue and White by visiting www.generalssports.com or on social media at @WLUGenerals.
