Iowa Wesleyan basketball sweeps Haskell

MT. PLEASANT — Friday night marked the first conference home games for Iowa Wesleyan in the 2022-23 college basketball season, and the Tigers ended the day with the same amount of total losses that they started with.

Iowa Wesleyan stayed unbeaten in Continental Athletic Conference play in both women’s and men’s basketball. The Tiger women pulled away late to beat Haskell 66-57, and the Tiger men won 81-60.

The Iowa Wesleyan women were playing a Haskell team that came in 3-0 in CAC play, and have been one of the more dangerous teams in the CAC, but the Tigers had just enough down the stretch.

Iowa Wesleyan led 26-20 at halftime, but a 22-point fourth quarter had Haskell within one point, as Iowa Wesleyan’s advantage stayed at 43-42 after three periods.

Haskell had the game tied with seven minutes left after star player Miracle Spotted Bear hit one of her three fourth-quarter 3-pointers to knot things up at 48-48, but Brielle Baker broke the tie with a layup on the other end, and the Tigers held the lead for the final six-and-a-half minutes.

Megan Teal had an enormous game off the bench for the Tigers, hitting four 3-pointers and scoring 21 points off the bench to lead the team. Isabell West finished with 19 points and 12 rebounds. Kyla Moore had 10 points. Breanna Wendland and Maci Kuchta scored five apiece. Baker finished with four, and Faith Watkins had two.

The 25th-ranked Tiger men were up just 39-33 at halftime, but the Tigers rolled in the second half, scoring 42 points to race to victory.

Gacoby Jones burned Haskell all night, finishing 7-for-10 from the field and 5-for-7 from 3-point land to finish with 20 points. Joey Brown IV scored 16. Henry Shannon finished with 14 points, and Victor Munoz had 12 points and 11 rebounds to give the Tigers four double-digit scorers.

Dylan Hurley poured in seven points off the bench. Carver Locke scored five points. Hakeem Odunsi and Jadyn Gray had three points each and James Evans II finished with one.

Both Tiger teams continue to sit pretty in the CAC standings. The women are 13-6 overall and 3-0 in conference play, and the men are 19-1 overall and 3-0 in the conference as well. The Tigers have four-straight CAC road games, including games in Lawrence, Kansas this week, as the men will play Bacone College on Thursday, and the women’s teams will show down on Friday.