Tigers tag Owls in Ashton’s first home game

MT. PLEASANT — Iowa Wesleyan head coach Jordan Ashton is 1-0 at home after defeating William Woods in his first home game at the lead. The Tiger men held off the Owls 62-57 in front of a rocking Ruble Arena crowd.

The Tigers did so despite a rough night shooting the ball. The Tigers shot just 31.3 percent from the field and an anemic 18.5 percent from 3-point land, yet found a way to lead William Woods for the vast majority of the second half.

“For some reason, we couldn’t buy a bucket, especially in the first half,” Ashton. “But our guys found a way.”

William Woods had the advantage early. The Owls led by five at different times in the first half, and held a 25-24 lead in the final minute, before Iowa Wesleyan’s Victor Munoz brought the house down with an alley-oop dunk.

Eric Howard lobbed a one up to Munoz, who dunked on a William Woods defender with 31 seconds left. That gave the Tigers a 26-25 lead going into the break.

After shooting 1-for-15 from 3-point land in the first half, the Tigers hit 4-of-12 in the second, including an early Henry Shannon trifecta that gave Iowa Wesleyan a 29-27 lead. The Owls fought back, but another 3-pointer, this time by Allante Pickens, gave the Tigers a 34-33 advantage.

William Woods never led again after Pickens’ shot. The Tigers brought the lead up to nine points on another Pickens 3-pointer, and although the advantage got down to three points, the Owls never had the ball with a shot to tie.

“That was a grinder,” Ashton said. “We really had to grind out that win.”

Pickens led the team with 19 points, eight rebounds and five assists in the win. He scored 11 of those points in the second half.

“I’m happy that we won, but at the same time I’m not happy how we played,” Pickens said. “We’re still finding our chemistry, but we stuck through it.”

Pickens credited the effort on the other side of the ball with stepping up when the offense wasn’t going.

“It’s tough, because we’ve got a lot of good shooters on our team,” Pickens said. “But whenever the offense isn’t good, we’ve got to get it going on defense.”

Henry Shannon scored 15 points, all in the second half, and pulled down eight rebounds. Munoz finished with eight points. Joey Brown had six points and seven rebounds. Gacoby Jones and Dylan Hurley had five points apiece, and Howard scored four.

Iowa Wesleyan moved to 2-1 with the win. The Tigers play Grand View University on Thursday night.