CSR (Basketball Teams Fall on Second Day of CCIW/MIAA Classic)

CALVIN SPORTS REPORT FOR DEC. 1, 2007 (Part One)

Basketball Teams Fall on Second Day of CCIW/MIAA Classic

MEN’S BASKETBALL
Wheaton 68, Calvin 67
(written by Bruce VanBaren ’09)

Calvin’s bid for its second win against a nationally ranked team this season
fell just short Saturday night in the second game of the CCIW/MIAA Challenge.
The 15th ranked Knights fell to no. 22 Wheaton 68-67 at the Fieldhouse, while
Hope defeated Carthage in the early game.

Wheaton bounced back from an 83-53 loss to Hope College, last night.

“It’s a huge win to beat Calvin at Calvin and it took everything for us,” said
Wheaton coach Bill Harris. “It was embarrassing yesterday. Our kids took it
hard. They know they deserved to be ranked and they know they’re good.”

“They’re a lot better team then what they showed last night,” said Coach Kevin
Vande Streek. “If you lose you lose, but it’s tough to lose knowing you didn’t
give your best effort. We were kind of fighting a battle of intensity and
that’s not an easy battle to fight.”

Calvin had a chance to overcome the nine point second half deficit it faced
after Dustin Smith (Hamilton HS) stole the inbound pass with 17 seconds
remaining. But Wheaton stepped out to defend Smith, Caleb Veldhouse (Sioux
Falls Christian) and Derek Griffin (Muskegon CC) and none could get a good look
at the basket. Tyler Zoerhof (Holland Christian) eventually drove through the
lane to cut the deficit to one, but only 3.2 seconds remained in the game.
Wheaton, who had three turnovers in the final 42 seconds, was able to inbound
the ball to seal the win.

“When you’re up three the thing you don’t want [to give up] is a three,” said
Harris. “They could have had the most spectacular dunk since Michael Jordan, if
they dunk who cares.”

“I thought we had a look at an open three right before that and we didn’t take
it,” said Coach Kevin Vande Streek. “You get down to two seconds and you’re
probably better to throw something at the backboard. I could have called a
time out and set up a play, but I preferred to play. We’ve worked on situations
like that.”

 “It really wasn’ t the end of the game that determined the out come,” said
Vande Streek. “It was really the first twenty minutes where we didn’t play as
hard as what were capable of playing. That consistency of effort was
disappointing.”
Calvin’s offense, which averaged 84.8 points per game coming into the night,
shot 41% from the floor, but only 37% in the first half. Calvin, who had been
averaging 11 turnovers per game, had 18 turnovers tonight. Still, Wheaton shot
only twenty times to Calvin’s 34 shot attempts in the second half.

“I thought we played hard in the second half,” said Vande Streek.
“[Wheaton’s]Ben Panner had three three’s in a row and that was really
tough.” Panner’s three pointers came after the Knights had taken their first
lead of the second half. The final three pointer came with 6:56 to play. Panner
was seven of seven from beyond the arc to lead all scorers with a career high
25 points.

“I thought for two of those threes we were just kind of right there, and one we
got hung up on a screen,” said Vande Streek.

Wheaton jumped to an early 10-2 lead, showing no signs of last night’s loss to
Hope. Calvin missed its first four shots and didn’t score until 4:30 into the
game.

“If we were up 10-2, then they’re like ‘O no, here we go again,’” said Vande
Streek.
But Calvin was able to answer with an 8-0 run thanks to four points by John
Mantel (Chelsea HS) who finished the night with nine points and three rebounds.
Wheaton closed the half with a 10 to three run as Panner hit two of his seven
three pointers and led 37-28.

Calvin turned the ball over on three of its first four possessions of the
second half. A Brent Schuster (Denver Christian) put back of a Zoerhof miss and
a foul shot gave Calvin its first lead of the half. Zoerhof returned the favor
to give the Knights the largest lead they would have in the second half with
8:39 remaining. After Panner’s three three-pointers, Wheaton would never trail
again.

The Thunder were also helped by All-American guard Kent Raymond who had 20
points, under his average of 24.2 points per game. Raymond also had eight
assists, most of them to Panner. Also coming up big for Wheaton was center Andy
Wiele who was the third player in double figures for the Thunder. But more
importantly he controlled the boards, setting a CCIW/MIAA Challenge record with
17 rebounds.

“It’s about defense and rebounding,” said Harris of the win. “17 rebounds-
that’s amazing.”
Calvin was led by Griffin who had 16 points. Veldhouse added 14 points on six
of 14 shooting. He has scored in double-figures in every game this season.
Veldhouse hit two of five three-pointers, while Griffin hit three of five from
beyond the arc.

Zoerhof was the third Knight in double-figures on four of eight shooting. He
also matched a career high with seven rebounds. Josh Engelsma (Covenant
Christian) led Calvin with eight rebounds, four of which were offensive. Calvin
also out-rebounded Wheaton 37- 30.

“I thought we did a good job on the boards,” said Vande Streek.”It wasn’t like
we were a no show [tonight], but it wasn’t 100% effort.”

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Carthage 52, Calvin 50
(written by Colin McWhertor ’08)

Holland, MI - A pair of free throws by Carthage College’s Erika Bucholz with
3.7 seconds left dropped Calvin to its second straight loss and left the
Knights without a win in this year’s MIAA-CCIW Challenge at Hope College’s
DeVos Field House Saturday afternoon.

Carthage overcame a late Calvin lead to beat the Knights 52-50 a day after
Calvin had dropped its first game of the challenge to Wheaton College. Calvin
falls to 4-2 on the season while The Lady Reds of Carthage improve to 3-1. The
win was the first ever for Carthage in the four year challenge.

Bucholz was the late star for Carthage, as she scored 15 points in leading her
team back from as many as 10 points down in the second half. Moments before
her clutch free throws, Bucholz nailed a three-pointer as the shot-clock was
expiring that bumped Carthage to a 50-48 lead and deflated the Calvin defense.

“They hit some really big shots,” said Calvin coach John Ross. “They had some
fortunate ones go in and made some clutch shots that we didn’t get.”

The teams played fairly even the first half as Calvin was led by junior Marcia
Harris (GR Christian), who scored nine of the teams first 11 points. Harris
got into early foul trouble however and Calvin could go to the locker room with
only a 28-26 lead at the half.

Calvin roared out of the gate in the second half as a three-pointer by
sophomore Allison Griswold (Lansing Christian) and back to back three-point
plays by Harris and sophomore Brook VanEck (Lowell) staked Calvin to a 39-29
lead. It appeared as if Calvin would be able to pull out a win before Carthage
started mounting a comeback with a little over 10 minutes left in the game.

Despite the loss, Ross said his team played better than the night before in the
loss to Wheaton. “We played harder today,” he said, “we didn’t get the result
we wanted, but at least we played hard. And we will get better; I know we’ll
be prepared to play hard next time out.”

Ross also mentioned that he thinks his team is still getting used to playing
without Lisa Winkle, Calvin’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder who
graduated last year.

“We still don’t know how to play without Lisa Winkle,” said Ross. “We need to
learn our offense and get used to the parts that we have.”

Harris used her hot start to lead Calvin in scoring with 16 points to go with
seven rebounds while VanEck notched her second consecutive double-double by
scoring 10 points and grabbing 12 rebounds. Junior Kristi Brummel also scored
eight points for Calvin.

Calvin was only able to shoot 33.3 percentfor the second game in a row. The Knights improved from three-point range by
shooting 28.6 percent from behind the arch on 4-14 shooting. Calvin had
turnover trouble again as the Knights committed 17 turnovers.
Carthage was held to a 31.7 field goal percentage for the game but was able to
connect on six three-pointers for the game to help its cause.

Calvin will be back in action on Wednesday evening when the Knights travel to
South Bend, IN to take on the Belles of St. Mary’s before taking a break for
exams next week. Calvin is 1-0 in the MIAA after beating Kalamazoo last
Tuesday to start the league season.

Jeff Febus
Sports Information Director
Calvin College
(616) 526-6169 Office
(616) 526-8551 Fax
Received on Sat Dec 1 23:11:02 2007