MEN’S BASKETBALL

Road wins in the Crossroads League are hard to come by, but the HU men’s basketball team found a way to sneak out of the Weikamp Athletic Center Wednesday night with a 99-91 come-from-behind win over #17 Bethel (19-7, 8-5).

Down by nine, 82-73, with 8:32 remaining, a quick timeout by Coach Kory Alford fueled his team’s comeback.  The Foresters’ response was a fast and furious 16-2 run over a three-minute spurt that catapulted them on top 89-84. The Pilots would score on the next possession to trim it to three, but it was as close as they would get the rest of the way.

HU went into lock-down mode defensively to give up just nine points after that pivotal TO for their second W of the season over BU. The first outing between these two squads was less than two weeks ago when HU handed the then-ranked #11 Pilots a 110-98 loss.

The first 30 minutes was a roller-coaster of a ride. The two teams bickered for the lead in the opening 20 minutes before deadlocking, for the fifth time up to that point, at 46-46 by halftime. While the visitors opened a lead to start the second frame, it wasn’t long before Bethel took over to eventually grow the largest lead of the night, 78-67, by the midway point of the period.

But it was one-sided after that with Alford and crew having the final say by way of a 20-point swing over the final ten minutes to log their first win at Bethel since January of 2018.

“I’m really proud of our effort tonight,” said Alford. “It’s always hard to win on the road in this conference but our guys never folded. They played hard for 40 minutes and got enough stops down the stretch to take the lead and then hold for the win.”

Zach Goodline finished with 23 points and five assists to lead the Foresters. Spencer Ballinger came off the bench to pour in a season-best 21 points on 7-for-9 shooting in addition to swiping three steals. Peyton West added 18 points, four rebounds and four steals all the while defending one of the league’s best in TreVion Crews.

Caleb Middlesworth, in nine minutes of action, logged 14 points. Ben Humrichous and Hank Pulver shared team-high rebounding honors with seven apiece.

“I thought Peyton was fantastic on both sides of the ball,” noted Alford. “He made it tough on Crews all night and was highly efficient offensively.

“Spencer also stepped up huge for us. He played a lot of minutes and provided a ton of scoring off the bench.”

Jared DeHart topped all scorers with 26 points. Crews finished with 25 while Wesley Burse and Jani Griffith netted 20 and 11 points respectively. Griffith also pulled down a game-best 11 rebounds for the night’s only double double.

With this win, the Foresters improve to 15-7 overall, 6-6 in league play. HU returns to Platt Arena on Saturday for a 1:00 p.m. matchup with #13 Marian.