The DePauw University Tigers suffered a season-crippling loss to the Allegheny College Gators at Neal Fieldhouse Friday night.
"You could kind of just tell that they were more ready to play than we were," said junior center Tommy Fernitz. "It just came down to that they wanted it more than us."
A team that could have been easily overlooked by the Tigers, Allegheny came into Friday night's contest winless in NCAC play and stuck in a difficult 10 game losing streak.
At the beginning, it seemed that the Tigers were well on their way to handing the Gators their 11th straight loss.
DePauw was able to stretch its lead to 12 in the first half and controlled the pace of play. The Tigers were led by a deadly three-point attack from senior guard Michael Wilkison and junior guard Connor Rich, who each hit three shots from behind the arc to lead the Tigers' assault.
DePauw was able to jump out to the big first half lead thanks to accurate shooting. The Tigers were 6-9 from the three point stripe and shot a solid 60 percent from the floor.
Things changed, however, at the end of the first half. Allegheny closed out the first 20 minutes on an 8-2 run that brought the Gators within five points at halftime.
The Gators carried the momentum over to the second half, as they were able to quickly tie the game at 37 in just one and a half minutes.
The hot shooting that carried the Tigers to their large first half lead went cold in the final 20 minutes. Wilkison missed all six of his shots from the floor in the second half. Overall the Tigers shot 30.8 percent in the half and only 18.2 percent from beyond the arc.
DePauw took a 62-59 lead with 3:41 remaining after sophomore guard Adam Botts knocked down a three, but Allegheny came right back, tying the game at 62 with a three of their own on their following possession.
With a three-point lead and 12 seconds left to play, Allegheny chose to foul Wilkison to prevent him from tying the game with a three-pointer. Following two successful free throws, Wilkison failed to knock down a game-tying shot, and DePauw would go on to lose 66-69.
Since they returned to Neal Fieldhouse the next day to face off against Hiram College, the Tigers needed a short memory.
"I tried to just leave it at the gym," Fernitz said. "A game like that, you've just got to get over it and move on to the next one."
A strong first half performance helped the Tigers tame the Terriers and earn an 84-71 win.
The Tigers began the game on a 12-5 run and took advantage of a 13-0 run to lead the Terriers by 17 points at the midpoint of the first half. The Tigers held a 44-31 point lead when the two teams went into the half.
While the Tigers were never able to pull away in the second half, they were able to keep Hiram from making any noise. The closest the Terriers cut the deficit to was seven with 1:12 left to play, but intentional fouls helped DePauw push its lead back up to double figures.
Senior forward Pat Haggin led the way for the Tigers with a game high of 17 points. Haggin scored seven straight points for the Tigers and was instrumental in keeping the Terriers from threatening the Tigers' lead.
Fernitz chipped in with 16 points, and first-year guard Luke Lattner dropped 13 points in the victory.
Following the win, players seemed relieved to just get back to winning.
"It's always crucial to win games at this point in the season so we were happy to get it going again," Botts said.
"We definitely needed that one," Fernitz said. "We have some big games coming up so it was crucial to come back and get that win."
Wilkison commented on the Tigers' weekend split.
"You can't win them all," Wilkison said. "It would have been nice to win both games, but now we know we have to be even more focused on the upcoming games and make sure we execute the game plan to put ourselves in the best position to get into the NCAA tournament."
The Tigers face an almost must-win game against NCAC rival Wittenberg University Wednesday at 8 p.m.