GAME STATS PICTURED ABOVE: Tim McCrary scored 15 points, with eight rebounds.
Whitewater, Wis. - The Wheaton College men's basketball team lost to Wisconsin-Whitewater 67-56 on Friday night in the NCAA Tournament Sectional Semifinal. Wheaton ends its year with a 23-7 overall record, making just its third NCAA “Sweet 16” appearance in the Division III Tournament. Whitewater (26-4) will host Virginia Wesleyan on Saturday night at 7 PM in the NCAA Sectional Final.
Wheaton senior
Tim McCrary concluded his brilliant career with a team-high 15 points, eight rebounds and four assists. Fellow senior
Jeremy Pflederer (PICTURED RIGHT) wrapped up his tremendous career with 13 points, on 5-for-7 shooting from the field. Junior guard
Nate Serenius scored 12 points off the Thunder bench.
Alex Edmunds scored 16 points, with six rebounds off the UW-Whitewater bench. Chris Davis scored 14 points, with nine rebounds for the hosts.
Wheaton head coach
Mike Schauer noted, “One of the tough things whenever you get beat is to acknowledge how well your opponent played, and I thought Whitewater was fantastic tonight. They are the best defensive team we have seen.” Schauer's team won 23 games, the third-highest total since Wheaton joined Division III. He added of his team's strong season, “I am really pleased with our guys. In the end, I want our team and our constituency to go, wow this was a pretty good team.”
The Warhawks jumped out to a 13-4 lead over the first five and a half minutes and UW-Whitewater led for the entire first half.
Wheaton out-scored the Warhawks 12-5 over the first seven minutes of the second half to trim the hosts' lead to 41-32. Wheaton cut Whitewater's lead to 44-40 with 9:40 remaining. However, the Warhawks responded with an 8-2 run to extend its lead to 52-42 with seven minutes left in the game to close out the win.
Over the past four seasons Wheaton compiled a four-year record of 86-28 to win 75-percent of its games, thanks in large part to its five seniors:
Aaron Garriott,
Tim McCrary,
Jeremy Pflederer, Steve Pierotti and
Spencer Schultze.
McCrary ends his career seventh on Wheaton's all-time scoring list (1, 754 points), fifth on the rebounding list (913 rebounds) and second on the all-time assist list (415 assists). His 668 field goals is sixth-highest in school history, and as a starter in all 114 games over the past four seasons he is tied for second all-time in games played. Pflederer leaves the Thunder program 11th in school history with 145 three-pointers and his 68 treys this year is tied for fourth in the Wheaton single-season record books.
