Bulldogs fall short again at the buzzer

By Doug Coats
Staff Writer

Forward Donald Rutherford scored a career high-tying 30 points to lift the Catawba Indians over Wingate Wednesday night.

A short jump shot by freshman center Odell Turner fell off the rim as time expired to give the Indians (13-7, 6-3 SAC) the 75-73 victory. The Bulldogs (11-10, 4-6) had to go the length of the court after Catawba’s reserve center Lee Martin tip-in with 6.4 seconds left. “We wanted Jaime [Vaughn] to take it to the basket, but he found the open man instead,” Wingate coach Brian Good said.

Despite Turner’s miss, which was very similar to the conclusion of the home Tusculum game, Good was pleased at the play’s execution. “We have gotten better at making the right play.”

Catawba came out gunning from the outside, hitting on 7-of-15 shots from three point range. Although they shot so well against the Bulldog defense, Good stuck to the plan they had prepared. “That’s how we wanted to defend them,” Good said. “We were prepared to make them a jump shooting team.”

Offensively, Wingate’s scoring sheet looked much different than previous games. Freshman forward Quan Alexander lead the team with 18 points. Vaughn had led the team in scoring the last three games, but was held to only three points tonight. “We focused on getting a lot of transition points,” said Turner, who had 14 points and a team high eight rebounds. “We wanted to get somebody else the open shot.”

Rutherford was too tough to handle, though. The senior from Morganton finished with 13 rebounds to go with his second 30 point output of the week. He hit on 13-of-18 shots, 8-of-10 in the second half.

Although the final score was close, the first half was full of runs with each team going up by 10 points in the initial frame. Catawba had its largest lead of 10 before a jump shot by freshman Ethan Kincaid as the half ended.

The Bulldogs came out in the second half with a half court trap on defense, not allowing the Indians to score until the 18:08 mark of the half. A three pointer by Kincaid and a jump shot by Alexander on consecutive possessions gave the Bulldogs a 50-49 lead with 11:46 to go in the game—their first since the 4:26 mark of the first half. “In the second half, we got back into playing like a team,” Turner said.

With the loss, the Bulldogs fall to seventh in the conference standings. Catawba is now in third.

Wingate has a rare week off and will face Tusculum, who is on a four game winning streak, for the second time next Wednesday. Good hopes the break is beneficial to the club. ”We are going to try to get fresh and worry about us.”