By: Tied at 23-23 with less than seven minutes left in the first half, Carroll embarked on a 20-3 run going into halftime and never looked back on Saturday afternoon.
Box Score WAUKESHA, Wis. – For more than 13 minutes the Illinois College men's basketball team played Carroll University even, tying the game at 23-23 on a
Cody Hildebrand layup with 6:45 left in the first half. It all changed after that bucket though, with the Pioneers altering the tone of the contest with a 20-3 run going into the break and extending the lead throughout the second half to pull away for a 94-59 victory over the Blueboys on Saturday afternoon.
It was a day of offensive struggles for Illinois College. One of the most reliable free throw shooting teams in all of Division III, the Blueboys only went 6-of-15 from the line in the game and shot below 39 percent from the field as a team. Though 11 players scored for IC on the day, no one player had more than nine points individually.
Though the game would get out of hand later on, the Blueboys were right with the Pioneers for much of the first half. After
Max Stutsman tied the game at 2-2,
Tim Schappaugh put Illinois College in front at 5-4 with a three-pointer. Moments later,
Mason Speer sank a three-ball of his own to give IC a 9-7 lead with just over four minutes gone.
With the game tied at 11-11, Carroll shot out in front with a 8-2 spurt.
Brad Herrmann cut the Pioneer lead back to three on a triple however, and Stutsman knotted the score once again at 21-21 with a trey at the eight-minute mark of the first half. Carroll's Marcus Johnson and Hildebrand traded layups on opposite ends of the floor, leaving the score tied at 23-23.
On the next trip down the floor, Bryan Nagy of the Pioneers converted a three-point play to start a 7-0 run for the home side.
Payton Dugan made a free throw to stop the scoreless drought, but Carroll added four more points before Dugan scored on a layup that left the game at 34-26 with four minutes left in the half. Illinois College wouldn't score again the rest of the way into the break though, and Carroll ended with a 9-0 run that made it 43-26 at the intermission.
Mitchell Patterson started the second half with a pretty fadeaway jumper to cut the deficit back to 15, but that was as close as the Blueboys would get. Carroll answered on the other end, and though the teams were even over the next five minutes, the Pioneers eventually began to expand their lead. Scoring droughts from IC down the stretch allowed Carroll to lead by as many as 37 in the final minute.
Kaiden Davis scored his first career field goal for Illinois College to end the scoring in the contest.
Schappaugh and Stutsman each ended with nine points on the day for IC, with Stutsman adding a team-high six rebounds. Hildebrand had seven points, as did Dugan coming off the bench. Patterson had four points and four assists for the Blueboys.
Illinois College returns home to Sherman Gymnasium on Jan. 26 to host Grinnell College. The Blueboys and Pioneers will tip-off at 5 p.m.
