After suffering perhaps its worst offensive performance of the season in a half of a basketball game, Wayland put together a magnificent comeback, only to collapse in the last two minutes and lose 55-44 to Grand Rapids Christian Friday night.
The Wildcats scored only 12 points in the entire first 16 minutes of the ballgame and were down 24-12 at intermission. No one escaped the offensive misery, with a three by junior guard Carson Sevigny making him the team’s leading scorer at halftime.
A stingy man-to-man defense by the Eagles even kept usually high scoring Wayland forward Carter Nyp at bay, as he only had two points before the start of the third quarter.
Meanwhile, GR Christian senior Setric Millner Jr., said to have signed to play next year for Cleveland State University, had collected 16 points by intermission, outscoring the entire Wayland team by four points.
The comeback began slowly in the third period when Nyp finally nailed a couple of threes. A terrific hustling ball recovery by junior center Cory Ainsworth with 8.1 seconds remaining and Sevigny’s nifty in-bounds pass to Jack Donewald underneath for a layup resulted in the ‘Cats pulling to within six, 36-30, before the start of the final eight minutes.
Donewald went on a heroic tear in the fourth quarter, sinking a three with four minutes left in the ballgame and bringing his team to within three, 42-39, and then he took the ball to the iron with about 2:30 left to cut the margin to just one point, 42-41.
But then Millner stepped up again. He scored back-to-back layups, the second one coast to coast, and spent most of the rest of the evening swishing free throws. He scored all of Eagles’ last 13 points and finished the ballgame with 34 points.
Nyp finished with a dozen points and Ainsworth counted nine, obviously the bulk of their scoring coming in the second half. Donewald scored all eight of his points at clutch junctures.
The loss dropped Wayland’s overall record to 6-8. The Wildcats are 2-5 in the O-K Gold Conference.
COVER PHOTO: Jack Donewald had some exciting heroics at the end of the third period and a couple of times in the fourth quarter.
(Photos courtesy of Kenny Ritz)