WMVO Good Times Great Oldies
HUNTINGTON, Ind. – The Mount Vernon Nazarene University men’s basketball team fell on the road in the opening round of the Crossroads League Quarterfinals at Huntington University by a score of 100-83 on Wednesday, February 22.
MVNU entered the contest as the six seed in the bracket against the third-seeded Foresters. The Cougars entered postseason play hot as they walked into Platt Arena having won four out of their last five contests. Unfortunately for the Cougars, the Foresters would come out of the locker room red-hot in the first half, hitting 62.9% of its attempts from the floor. The fast start offensively saw the Foresters build a 52-36 lead at the half.
MVNU continued to trail by double-digits for most of the second half but were able to slow down the Forester attack. MVNU held Huntington to just 37.9% shooting from the field and 27.3% shooting from three in the second half. The Cougars began to claw their way back into the game late. Kade Ruegsegger cut the Huntington lead to single digits on a pair of free throws with 4:50 left in the game. Despite fighting hard down the stretch, MVNU could not slow down the Foresters in the end as they closed the game on a 23-12 run. Huntington took advantage of MVNU’s 25 turnovers in the game, and also took advantage at the line, making 27 of its 32 attempts.
Inside the Box Score
Kade Ruegsegger stayed hot with 25 points. He had five rebounds, four assists and two steals.
Kyle Kegley had 17 points. The senior added eight rebounds and four assists.
Senior, Eric McLaughlin had 14 points, five rebounds and two steals.
Trent Koning was the fourth Cougar in double figures with 13 points of his own. Koning was 4-9 from the field.
Coach Ronai’s Thoughts
“Super proud of this group. They battled all season long and were playing their best basketball at the end of February. Thankful for this journey we went on and the growth that we discovered.”
