Tabor men rally big to down Friends, 63-60 years ago
By RYAN RICHTER
Sports writer
The last time the Bluejays met the Friends Falcons a year ago, they were humiliated on their home floor in the KCAC playoffs.
Everything that could have gone wrong for Tabor did as the Falcons went on to qualify for the NAIA Tournament along with the Bluejays.
Come Saturday night in Wichita, Tabor was well on its way to having history repeat itself.
Poor shooting has been one of the many bugaboos for Tabor during a three-game losing streak and it had yet to clear up by Saturday night.
Lightning looked as if it was about to hit the Bluejays twice, being in dire straits by intermission after shooting a chilly 35 percent from the floor to trail 44-26.
Luckily, the Bluejays (7-8, 4-2 KCAC) put together a solid second half to knock off the Falcons, 63-60.
The Falcons got off to a fast start with the help of hitting a blistering 52 percent to cling to a double-digit lead most of the first half and leave Tabor fighting an uphill battle.
In the meanwhile, Tabor was playing its familiar game, struggling everywhere from taking care of the ball to rebounding and shooting, going eight-of-23 in the field.
But Tabor ended the first half on a 7-0 run to close the gap to 44-26.
The tide turned on the Falcons the second half as the Bluejays' perimeter defense held Friends to a sole triple and an eventual five-for-21 for the night.
The Bluejays caught fire, connecting for a scalding 61 percent overall and 14-18 at the free-throw line to inch their way back into the game.
Tabor ended the night 19-for-41 from the floor with 22-of-27 coming at the free throw line.
Jared Reese scored a game-high 15 points on a three-of-six night in the field and nine-for-11 at the line.
Chris Metcalf added 11 points on a near-perfect night from the floor, going five-for-six.
After a short, five-day break, the Bluejays return to action Thursday, hosting the Kansas Wesleyan Coyotes at 8 p.m. before hosting floundering St. Mary at 7 p.m Saturday.
Ottawa
A cloudy picture in the KCAC standings became more clear Thursday night in Hillsboro with the Bluejays taking on the Ottawa Braves.
With a four-team logjam for the top spot in the league, the Braves cashed in on red-hot shooting and woeful Tabor free-throw shooting, narrowing it to a three-team race with a 68-62 upset.
Bluejay coach Don Brubacher placed part of the blame for his team's poor performance during last weekend's Golden Heritage Foods Class on playing at a snail's pace offensively.
"We executed better than we did over the weekend," he said, "but we still need to play substantially faster. Offensively, we're moving so slowly, it's very easy to guard us. We're just playing at a snail's pace on the offensive end.
"I think we tried harder to execute our game, and it's a step in the right direction for us.
"It's just a bad combination. We had poor shooting, especially at the free-throw line and we just made some big mistakes defensively."
It's hard to stop any team that's shooting 50 percent from the floor as the Braves did.
Despite Tabor putting up 58 percent the second half, its 54 percent at the foul line proved to be the back-breaker.
Matt Nelson and Grant Brubacher each scored a team-high 15 points while Brad Gattis found his stroke to add 13 points. Metcalf added 11.
