KWU Athletics
BARTLESVILLE, Okla. – Kansas Wesleyan gave the third-ranked Oklahoma Wesleyan Eagles all they could handle the first 32½ minutes of their Kansas Conference Tournament semifinal game.
The final 7½ minutes weren't nearly as good, though. The top-seeded Eagles outscored KWU 19-5 and pulled away for a 67-58 victory Saturday night inside the Mueller Sports Center.
The Coyotes, who lost to the Eagles for the third time this season, fell to 22-10 on the season and will have to wait until Thursday to learn if they will receive an at-large bid to the NAIA National Championship that begins March 11.
OKWU (30-2) plays Bethel for the KCAC Tournament championship on Monday in Hartman Arena in Park City. Second-seeded Bethel outlasted third-seeded Southwestern 66-63 in the other semifinal Saturday night in North Newton.
Trailing 43-42 KWU put together an 11-3 run and led 53-48 with 7:33 remaining – Alex Littlejohn (FR/Newton, Kan.) scoring six of the 11. OKWU quickly responded with nine straight points and led 57-53 with 4:41 left.
A Cory Kaplan (SO/Merritt Island, Fla.) field goal at the 3:49 mark got the Coyotes within 57-55. Freshman Derrick Talton scored the next five points for OKWU before Kaplan's three-point drew the Coyotes within 61-58 with 1:55 left.
Back-to-back 3-pointers by Brandon Bird and Kazden Ammons the final 1:31 accounted for the game's final points.
The Coyotes were 1 for 6 from the field, 2 of 4 at the free throw line and had three turnovers the final 7½ minutes. They finished with 18 turnovers that led to 16 OKWU points; the Eagles had nine turnovers that resulted in four KWU points.
The sluggish offense negated the Coyotes superb defensive and rebounding efforts. The Eagles entered the game averaging 83 points and were outrebounding opponents by 11.2 per game but were 25 of 66 from the field (38 percent), 5-17 from 3-point range and were outrebounded 36-34.
KWU shot 40 percent (20 of 50), 5 of 22 from the perimeter and was 13 of 16 from the line.
Kaplan led the Coyotes with a double-double – 21 points and 10 rebounds – while Littlejohn had 10 points and five rebounds and Marcel Dean (SO/Tucson, Ariz.) eight points and six rebounds. Kaplan scored 68 points in KWU's three tournament games.
Bird led OKWU 16 points while Talton had 15. They combined for 27 points the second half – Bird 14 and Talton 13. Bird also had a team-best eight rebounds.
The first half was a see-saw battle with 14 lead changes. The Eagles led 35-31 with 2½ minutes left in the but two Kaplan free throws and a Kaplan 3-pointer gave the Coyotes a 36-35 lead at the break.