IW men fall short in second half

The Iowa Wesleyan men's basketball team had the lead at halftime on Wednesday night against Eureka, but when the Red Devils started hitting shots in the second half, the Tigers went cold.

IW had trouble finding buckets in the final minutes and it led to their second straight loss, 82-73.

The Tigers started the game red hot, especially Alberto Torres, who started lighting up the court immediately. Torres scored eight points in the first minute and 20 seconds, and that led IW to a 10-2 lead.

IW led by eight points on four different occasions in the first four minutes, but Eureka clawed back and eventually took a 33-30 lead on an Austin Juergens three-pointer with six minutes on the clock.

IW took back the lead on a couple of free throws by Jake Neubauer. Eureka scored the next three poitns, but Torres knocked in a three-pointer right before the halftime buzzer to give the Tigers a 42-41 lead at the break.

Torres scored 17 points in the first half. He was 5-9 from the field, 3-6 from three-point land and 4-4 from the line.

After going 7-19 from beyond the arc in the first half, the Tigers were 2-17 from down town in the second. Eureka's Dakota Bennington tied the game up with a dunk early in the second half and scored eight points in a row to give the Red Devils an early spark, and the Tigers could never recover.

Bennington scored 18 points in the second half, and 32 points overall to lead the Red Devils to the win. Eureka stretched the lead to double digits midway through the half, and although IW did cut the lead to five points on a Camron Mack layup with 5:43 left, they could never get the lead back to one possession.

After the game, head coach Alex Huisman talked about the team's struggles from the field in the second half.

'It was tough,” Huisman said. 'We got good looks too, in the second half, we just didn't finish the opportunities we had to. We missed a lot of open shots at the perimeter, and we missed a lot of bunnies as well. We left a lot of stuff short, and just didn't finish.”

Torres had 23 points to lead the Tigers in the loss. Neubauer had 13. Jaryd Fernandes had 10 points and 10 rebounds to finish the night with a double-double.

Mack and Austin Banks scored 10 points each. Kaleb Cresswell and Alex Dentlinger scored three apiece. Brian Patterson finished the game with one point, and Joshua Cole had 11 rebounds.

The IW men are now 4-11 overall and 2-6 in conference play. Pending an incoming snowstorm, they'll host Westminster College on Satrurday, Jan. 19.