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Ferris wins three straight, heads into con­fer­ence matchup vs. Findlay

Leaps and Bounds: The men’s bas­ket­ball team climbed to the top on Saturday, tri­umph­ing over the Tiffin Dragons with a score of 82–61. That vic­tory brought the Bulldogs to a record of 3–0, the best start they have had in 12 years. Photo By: Kate Dupon | Photographer

After the strong home stand, Ferris now stands at 3–3 over­all in the sea­son fol­low­ing two home vic­to­ries against Ashland and Tiffin over the weekend.

Ferris car­ried a post-win hang­over into the Ashland game and the team got off to a slow start. The Eagles came out shoot­ing 53.6 per­cent in the first half to take a 37–30 lead into halftime.

Halftime proved to be a wake-up call for the Bulldogs, as the team came out fir­ing. Ferris went on a 26–8 run in the first nine min­utes of the half and shot 64.5 per­cent from the field in the sec­ond half.

The Bulldogs also played strong on defense in the sec­ond half, where the team forced 12 turnovers. The strong play on both sides of the ball allowed Ferris to pull away for an 82–72 victory.

Junior forward/center Justin Keenan led the way for Ferris with a game high 21 points, while senior guard Austin Randel posted 16 points along with four steals. Junior guard Darien Gay chipped in a double-double with 12 points and 10 assists.

Coming off a sec­ond straight con­fer­ence vic­tory, the Bulldogs con­tin­ued their strong con­fer­ence play against Tiffin on Saturday as the team coasted to an 82–61 victory.

Ferris came out strong in the first half, as the team jumped out to an early 10-point lead just six min­utes into the con­test. With the team hit­ting 52.9 per­cent of its shots and nine of 15 three-pointers in the half, Ferris headed into half­time with a 21-point lead. Head coach Bill Sall was pleased with the strong first half play.

“We came out and played flat in that first half against Ashland and it was nice to see the guys come out strong today,” said Sall. “The guys came out with a pur­pose today.”

The strong first half proved to be all the Bulldogs needed, as the team never let Tiffin get closer than 18 points in the sec­ond half and cruised to a fourth-straight vic­tory over the Dragons.

For the Bulldogs, Keenan posted a team-high 16 points along with six rebounds. Senior guards Josh Young and Jon Yeazel both scored 13 points, while fresh­man for­ward Daniel Sutherlin added eight points and eight rebounds in his sec­ond career start.

The team will now head into a cru­cial con­fer­ence match-up tomor­row on the road against defend­ing Division II cham­pion Findlay University, who is 3–1 over­all on the sea­son and cur­rently ranked ninth in the NBCA/Division II Coaches Poll. Winning at Findlay will be a tough task though, as the Oilers cur­rently have a 77-game reg­u­lar sea­son win­ning streak at home.

“I don’t think we have to worry about our guys know­ing that they’re going to have to play their best bas­ket­ball against Findlay,” said Sall. “Our guys will def­i­nitely be pumped for that game.”