Box Score
By Bryn Swartz, GoMessiah.com reporter
Grantham, PA — The positive from Wednesday night's Commonwealth Conference match-up with league-leading Lebanon Valley College was clear, as Messiah kept the Dutchmen well under their season average of 70.5 points per game.
Sadly, the negative outweighed the positive.
Lebanon Valley — ranked 14th in this week's USA Today/ESPN Top 25 Coaches Poll and 17th in the latest D3hoops.com Top 25 ballot — limited the Falcons to just 32 points, the fewest a Messiah team had scored in a single game since the 1989-1999 season.
That defensive performance trumped Messiah's, as LVC rolled to its 11th straight victory, keeping its unblemished league record in tact in a 46-32 win in Brubaker Auditorium.
The Falcons shot just 13 of 41 (31.7 percent) from the field, including a dismal, five of 20 effort (25 percent) in the first half. They committed 23 turnovers for the game, and had more turnovers (23) than points scored (22) until only 5:55 remained in the game.
The contest was a tale of two halves, however, as Messiah (10-6, 4-2) lost the battle in the first half, 24-11, but remained much more competitive in the second half, scoring 21 against LVC's 22 points.
"To play that poorly on offense and turn the ball over so many times, the fact that we only gave up 46 points is great," said an optimistic Mike Miller, Messiah's head coach, after the game. "That's who they've been for the past three seasons. They're a very defensive-oriented team. We made the adjustments we needed to at halftime. We did a good job in the second half."
The Falcons trailed immediately in Wednesday's tilt between the top two teams in the C'Wealth, and eventually fell into an 8-0 deficit. Almost seven minutes of game time passed before the Falcons scored their first points, a layup by senior Michele Schleich.
Messiah rallied to cut the deficit to 12-9, following a jumper from sophomore Nicky Hess, a free throw and layup by junior Tremaine Simmons and a layup by sophomore Kira Maier.
But LVC scored 12 of the next 14 — including an 8-0 spurt in the final 3:33 — to take a commanding, 24-11 lead into halftime.
"In the first half, we gave up five points in the last second of the shot clock that we shouldn't have allowed," Miller said. "In the second half we got the looks that we wanted, looks that we did not get in the first half. We adjusted our offense and made up for what we couldn't do in the first half. Our turnovers in the first half were terrible. But in the second half we played a lot better."
Hess hit an early three pointer in the second period, but the Falcons' deficit continued to climb, as they soon trailed 36-17, with 8:45 left in the game.
Sophomore Jordan Seiz nailed back-to-back three pointers in a span of 42 seconds to finally give the Falcons more points scored than turnovers, but it was a brittle accomplishment: Messiah was on its way to scoring its fewest points since a 35-57 loss to the University of Scranton, back on Jan. 9, 1999.
Despite the difficulties scoring the basketball, the Falcons played strong defense and limited Lebanon Valley (16-1, 6-0) to just one made field goal in the final five minutes of play. But by that point, the outcome was already decided, as LVC hung on for the easy 14-point victory.
"We also gave up too many offensive rebounds tonight," Miller said of the Dutchmen's 11 second-chances. "They did a great job and our guards did not box out well enough. We also need to obviously work on our offensive execution. We did a better job in the second half, but we just did not do that well enough in the first half to have a legitimate chance against a really good team tonight."
Seiz paced what little scoring there was, connecting on the aforementioned threes and a couple of free throws to finish with eight points in just 14 minutes of play. She also did not commit a turnover.
Sophomore Dori Gyori was held scoreless for the first time in her collegiate career, attempting just three shots on the evening. Her previous low was two points scored in Messiah's 42-58 loss at Lebanon Valley College last season — occurring almost a year ago to the date, Jan. 20, 2010.
Maier was a highlight on both ends of the court, however, as the energetic forward scored six points, grabbed six rebounds and recorded four steals. She turned the ball over just once.
The Falcons limited LVC senior point guard Andrea Hoover to just 10 points, while forcing five turnovers in the contest. Hoover entered the game with 985 points and is currently five points shy of scoring 1,000 for her collegiate career.
Messiah will look back to its previous winning ways Saturday, as the team will travel to Commonwealth Conference rival Arcadia University. Game time is set for 1 p.m.
