In the last six games, Waynesburg’s men’s basketball team has scored 60 or more points just three times. Likewise, the Yellow Jackets’ opponent Dec. 9, the Thiel Tomcats, failed to break 60 in their four previous contests. Both offenses struggled to put points on the board throughout the game, but it was Waynesburg who came out on top 56-53, improving to 2-5 overall and 2-2 in Presidents’ Athletic Conference play, while the Tomcats fell to 3-4 overall and 1-2 in the PAC.

Coming into its win over Thiel at the Rudy Marisa Fieldhouse, head coach Mark Christner didn’t expect a lot of scoring from either side. For him, the game was a fair representation of both teams.

“I thought that if statistics bared themselves out, it would be [low scoring],” Christner said. “I think if we were a little better from the free-throw line, we would have [scored 60 points], but I did think first to 60 probably would have won today. [Thiel] is hard to play offense against because of its length and because of its defensive ability.”

It was apparent early on that scoring would be hard to come by. Although Thiel held the Jackets to just over 21 percent from the field (8-37) and 19 points in the first half, it went into halftime with just a two point lead, 21-19. The Tomcats shot just above 17 percent for the half (6-34) and were 0-6 in 3-pointers. According to Christner, a central focus going into the second half was the offense improving its ability to cut to the basket.

“[Cutting] is something we talk about in practice every day,” Christner said. “We talked about kind of reviewing the cues that you want to review and making sure that we kind of stayed right in that moment.”

Although Thiel scored the first six points to start the second half, the Jackets held their own, and both teams went back and forth. The lead changed four times over the last 20 minutes, with the last one coming with over six minutes to play when a layup by freshman guard Matt Popeck put the Jackets ahead, 47-46. With 2:16 left, a layup by sophomore guard Frank Bozicevic pushed Waynesburg’s lead to 56-49. Those would be the team’s final two points of the afternoon.

Although the Tomcats made it a one-possession game with 1:23 left via a jumper by senior guard Tyreik Burton, that’s as close as they got. A three-point try by Burton with three seconds left fell short, and Waynesburg escaped with the win.

Burton, who leads Thiel in scoring, came in averaging over 15 points per game. Waynesburg’s defense held its own against him, and Burton ended the day with 12 points, going just 4-16 from the field and 0-5 from three.

“[Burton] is a dynamic player…he hasn’t quite gotten on track yet, and I think we wanted to make sure that that continued,” Christner said. “We didn’t want to give him any clean looks…maybe the cleanest look he got was the one at the end that could have tied it. I thought we did a really good job of making him think. He’s good, and you do the best job you can and hopefully, he misses a couple.”

Both teams only had two players score in double figures. Sophomore guard Nyric Gosley led the Tomcats with 17 points, and also contributed nine rebounds. For Waynesburg, Popeck led the way with 13 points, grabbing seven boards, while senior guard Jon Knab scored 11. Also for Waynesburg, freshman forward Ben Vitovich finished the game with seven blocks—one shy of tying a school record. For Vitovich, the key to his success was not getting into foul trouble.

“Honestly just staying straight up, not trying to foul [was key],” Vitovich said. “That really helped me out, and I tried to stay with every play. That’s really about it.”

Christner echoed that sentiment.

“He’s learning to play without fouling,” Christner said. “He’s able to play more minutes. His timing and his movement defensively are really effective for us because he has length. We need him to continue to grow offensively, and I know he will put in the work to do that, but defensively he’s really continued to take some big strides.”

The Jackets shot over 46 percent for the second half, finishing the day shooting over 32 percent from the field (22-67) and over 31 percent (7-22) from 3-point land. Waynesburg struggled from the foul line, going 5-14, with all attempts coming in the second half. Thiel finished the afternoon at 16-20 from the line while going 18-70 from the field and 1-9 from three.

Waynesburg has over a week before its next contest, which will be a non-conference matchup against Hilbert at Marisa Fieldhouse.

To Christner, the Jackets being a team that overcomes adversity to win is something that will be essential to having a successful season, and despite a 73-65 loss to Bethany Wednesday, Dec. 6, this week was a step forward in the Jackets intensity level.

“We want to be a group that does whatever is necessary,” Christner said. “…I thought going into this week we really needed to raise our compete level in terms of confidence or just the ability to feel like we can defend good teams in our league, and I thought both games we did a really good job of that, and then we believe the offense will come along.”