OWENSBORO, Ky. – The Kentucky Wesleyan men's basketball team (6-4, 2-2 G-MAC) defeated Tiffin 75-65 on Saturday afternoon inside the Owensboro Sportscenter. Three Panthers scored 17+ points to headline the victory.
Tiffin came out of the gates hot and built an early 10-4 lead, but that was as good as it would get for the Dragons (3-5, 0-3 G-MAC) in the first half.
Wesleyan reeled off a 30-12 run, highlighted by eight points and two threes from Armandas Plintauskas, to take a 34-22 lead. For the most part, the Panthers were able to maintain that advantage and went into the break leading 46-37 after a Caleb Mackrey three-pointer in the final seconds.
Coming out of halftime, Tiffin battled back to tie the game at 52-52 with just over 11 minutes to play. Later, after the Dragons had went up four at 61-57, Wesleyan had the perfect response: a 9-0 run, featuring seven straight points from Fatih Huyuk, that put the Panthers back up 66-61.
The Dragons kept fighting but couldn't quite recover. Tiffin came within four with just over two minutes left in the game, but a Mackrey layup and free throws from Jorge Sanchez-Ramos and Plintauskas put the game away.
Sanchez-Ramos tallied 18 points, four assists, four rebounds, and two steals, doing a little bit of everything for Wesleyan. Plintauskas and Huyuk each logged 17 points, and the latter added a team-high eight rebounds on top of four assists.
The Panthers are back inside the Sportscenter on Wednesday, December 17, for a non-conference battle versus Illinois-Springfield. Tipoff is set for 6:00 PM on FloCollege and 94.7 WBIO.
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