Dec. 12, 2007

MEN’S BASKETBALL: Lutes Focus on Finals, Return to Action Next Week

THIS WEEK: Pacific Lutheran (3-2) has a week off to focus on finals. The Lutes will return to action in an exhibition match against Simon Fraser (7-5) on Monday, Dec. 17, at 7 p.m.

LAST WEEK: PLU split its two games last week, losing 92-86 at St. Martins before winning its home opener, 63-60 over Northwest.

AT ST. MARTINS: Josh Dressler scored a career-high 38 points but the Lutes came out on the short end of a 92-86 non-conference men’s basketball decision to the NCAA Division II Saint Martin’s Saints in SMU Pavilion. Saint Martin’s took an early 7-0 lead, but with Dressler sandwiching a pair of three balls around another trey by Curtis Trondsen, the Lutes eventually tied the game at 13-13 five minutes into the contest. Dressler hit five of his three-pointers in the opening stanza as the Lutes surged to a 54-44 halftime advantage. Freshman Kyle MacTaggart helped out with nine points as the Lutes shot 53 percent in the opening period both from the field and beyond the three-point arc. Pacific Lutheran took its biggest lead of the game at 56-45 on a layup by Scott McDaniels with 18:21 to play, but the Saints responded with a 17-6 run – including seven points from reserve center Michael McIver – to tie the score at 62-62 with 12:41 remaining. The Lutes rebuilt a seven-point advantage at 78-71 with 6:15 left after consecutive three-point field goals by Dressler, but again the Saints whittled their deficit and eventually took an 85-84 lead on two Jake Linton free throws with 2:57 remaining. After PLU point guard Landon Heidenreich hit a pair of charity tosses with 1:47 to play, the Lutes went scoreless and the Saints closed with a long three-point field goal by Linton and a pair of free throws each from Tyler Nixon and Linton. Dressler ended up making 12-of-21 from the field and all six of his free throws, and he also contributed a team-high nine rebounds in addition to five assists and three steals. MacTaggart finished with 13 points, followed by Trondsen with 11 and McDaniels with 10 for the Lutes, who shot 44 percent for the game. Heidenreich, who was limited to 26 minutes by foul trouble, contributed eight assists for the Lutes.

HOME OPENER VS. NORTHWEST: Pacific Lutheran earned a hard-fought 63-60 win over the Northwest University Eagles at Olson Auditorium. Dressler continued his hot shooting, scoring 26 points to follow up his 38-point outburst against St. Martin’s on Wednesday night. The game started slow for both teams, with the Lutes’ scoring on only one of their first six shots in the first couple minutes and the Eagles not taking their first shot until PLU had already taken seven. PLU slowly built an 11-4 lead about seven minutes into the game, its biggest of the first half, before a 9-0 Northwest run put the Eagles up by two with just under ten minutes remaining in the period. PLU reclaimed the lead at 18-16, but the last ten minutes of the first half saw three ties and nine lead changes. A three-pointer by freshman wing Kyle MacTaggart with 1:17 to play in the half put the Lutes ahead by two, and a couple Dressler free throws took the Lutes to the locker room with a 28-24 halftime lead. Neither team shot well in the first half, as the Lutes entered the intermission shooting 35.5 percent and the Eagles shooting 30 percent. The second half began with a four-point Eagles run to force the fifth tie of the game, followed by an 8-0 Lute run to take the biggest lead of the game at 36-28. A couple Northwest runs narrowed the deficit to three on two occasions before a MacTaggart three-pointer and a Kevin Englund layup put the Lutes ahead 49-41 with 7:23 to play. An 11-0 Northwest run put the Eagles ahead 52-49 with just over five minutes to play, but the Lutes responded with a 10-1 run to pull ahead for good at 59-53. Northwest gave one final scare with 52 seconds remaining, pulling to within one at 61-60, but Dressler’s final two points sealed the game with 20 seconds left. Senior point guard Landon Heidenreich rebounded the Eagles’ final three-point attempt to finish out the final seconds.

DRESSLER’S DOMINANCE: Dressler, a junior guard from Vancouver, drained 8-of-14 three pointers on the way to his 38-point output against St. Martins, which ties him for sixth on the Pacific Lutheran single-game scoring list with three other players. The late Chuck Curtis, a Pacific Lutheran College All-American, scored 44 points against Whitworth in 1958 to establish the school record. Dressler’s eight “treys” were one short of the school single-game record set by Erik Peterson against Mesa State (Colo.) in 1995. He followed that up with a 9-19, 26-point performance against Northwest University to earn Northwest Conference player of the week honors. For the week he tallied 64 points, 17 rebounds, seven assists and five steals. Dressler becomes the second Lute to win NWC player of the week honors this season, following senior Scott McDaniels’ MVP performance at the Northwest Lutheran Invitational Tournament the first week of the season.

CONTINUING A RIVALRY: Unofficially, PLU’s game against Simon Fraser will be the 35th meeting between the two teams and the first since 1995. Between 1971 and 1995, the two teams faced off 34 times, with the Lutes earning an 18-16 record against the Clan in that span. Since the game will be an exhibition game, northing will go on the official record for the teams.

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