The Aquinas men's basketball team pulled out a hard fought WHAC road win over Concordia on Saturday afternoon (Feb. 5) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Saints used a 13-2 run in four of the last five minutes of the second half to take the final lead of the game and gain a double digit advantage to take the 73-62 win over the Cardinals.
The Saints improved their overall record to 14-12 on the season and move back up to seventh place in the WHAC with an 8-9 conference record. The Cardinals now have a record of 8-14 on the year and are 3-12 in the conference.
AQ led for all of three minutes of the first half, gaining a lead as big as six late in the half. The two teams came out hot with Concordia shooting the ball at a 48.1% clip in the first half and Aquinas made 39.4% of its field goals. Three Saints scored seven of more points in the first 20 minutes for a balanced scoring attack with Gabe Overway and Jaylen Rutherford scoring eight points and Justin Lary finishing with seven. The back-and-forth half finished with AQ taking a 35-31 lead into the locker room.
After fending off the Cardinals for the first seven minutes of the second half, CUAA grabbed the lead from AQ and kept it for the next five minutes. This is where the Saints took over and scored 16 of the next 18 points to take their first double digit lead of the ball game. Sammie Ryans was a catalyst during this run, scoring eight of his 13 totals points in that span. That run lead to the Saints capturing the 11-point lead over the Cardinals.
Both teams shot 47% from the floor in the offensive paced game, but AQ was able to double up CUAA from beyond the three-point line and shoot a much better free through percentage. Those two categories helped create the space for the Saints to win.
Lary has now scored double digit points in five of the last six games and led Aquinas today with 16 points on 7-11 shooting. He also had five rebounds, four assists (also led the team), a block, and a steal. Ryans and Rutherford both finished with 13 points as Overway was the fourth Saint to finish with double figures at 10 points.
Jesse Hillis led the team in the rebounding department with eight and Menalito McGee had the most steals at three. Trevor Ballard (8), Hillis (6), McGee (4), and Tommy Gregwer (3) rounded out the scoring for AQ.
Aquinas outrebounded Concordia by a 32-24 margin, while also holding advantages in assists (13-7) and steals (8-6). CUAA had three blocks to AQ's two as both teams had 11 turnovers. The Saints and Cardinals were even in the points in the paint (32) and second chance points (4) categories as AQ had more bench points (15-6) and CUAA had more points off turnovers (13-11).
The Saints will play their last regular season road game on Wednesday (Feb. 9) at Lawrence Tech, with tip-off scheduled for 7:30 PM.
