Second half surge leads to Rochester's 70-50 win over Minnesota West

Feb. 16—WORTHINGTON — After a battle in the first 30 minutes, the Minnesota West men's basketball team quickly fell behind afterwards in its 70-50 loss to Rochester Community and Technical College Wednesday night.

The Bluejays were facing a tough opponent as Rochester (16-8, 11-1 MCAC South division) is ranked 12th in the latest NJCAA Division III men's basketball poll. It was also a team they faced earlier this season and lost 77-46.

In the first game with the Yellowjacks, West was outscored by 24 points in the first half. But in Wednesday's game, the Bluejays looked ready for the challenge early. They took a three-point lead at the half, but didn't sustain the momentum in the second half. Rochester outpaced the Jays 42-19 in the second half to pull away.

"We made shots in that first half and that kind of got us out to a lead. And we were good defensively, not great, but it was good enough," said Bluejays coach Dan Tharp. "We knew that if we were gonna go through a stretch there where we didn't make enough shots and sure enough it came..."

The first half began with the teams trading buckets early. Six minutes in, the Bluejays took a 14-9 lead after a Karasharo Ojulo 3-pointer. Teddy Collins Jr. made an early impact during that stretch, scoring seven points.

The Yellowjackets responded with an 8-0 run for a 17-14 lead. Treys from Henry Counsel and Jordan Samuelsson ended that run and gave West the lead back with 9:41 left. The teams continued to trade outside shots for the rest of the half, but the Bluejays held a 25-20 advantage with just over six minutes left. After the two teams still went back-and-forth, West went into halftime with a 31-28 lead.

Ojulo played well in the first half, leading the charge with 10 points. Unfortunately for the Bluejays, Ojulo wouldn't return to the game after halftime due to sickness.

"The kid's playing at an all conference level, I mean, he's played so well," Tharp said of Ojulo. "He didn't have his greatest night Saturday at St. Cloud, but he had 10 points in that first half and three rebounds. That's a big loss for us, no question about it. He's a really good player and he's starting to find his way."

But at the beginning of the second half, the teams traded buckets again and the Bluejays held a 37-35 lead. Rochester then went on a 9-0 run to take a 44-37 lead, before a drive to the basket from Jordan Sinclair ended it. That was followed by a jumper from Paul Fairley Jr. and a Samuelsson three to cut the lead to 46-44 with 11:30 left.

The Yellowjackets then scored nine-straight points to first take a double-digit lead before a Minnesota West timeout. That didn't stop Rochester's run though as it eventually extended to a 16-1 stretch for a 62-45 lead with under five minutes left.

The Yellowjackets officially held firm control of the game and they continued to hold on to that big lead for the final few minutes as they wound up with the 20-point victory.

Rochester's offense executed throughout the second half, making 17-of-25 of their shots for a 68% field-goal percentage.

"They ran some really good stuff, don't get me wrong, coach (Brian) LaPlante does a heck of a job," Tharp said. "But yeah, they made shots. I mean, they made eight threes, that's their highest total in conference this year. It seems to happen to us a lot, unfortunately, is that teams have really good shooting nights against us. But I thought we took away a lot of their post stuff pretty well and we battled. We let them offensive rebound just probably a little bit too much, but again, it was the turnovers, there were just some untimely ones. 20 turnovers and nine steals, you know, and a lot of those steals were throwing to them and letting them run out and that kind of buried us just a little bit."

Collins finished with 13 points for West to go with Ojulo's 10. Jiekgoy Wiel added eight points, Sanuelsson seven, Counsel six, Sinclair four and Fairley two. Sinclair led the team in assists with five and tied with Wiel and Collins for the lead in rebounds with five.

For Rochester, Jamison Lien led with 15 points while Laden Nerison, Aden Price and Obinna Izoura each scored 10. The team ended up shooting nearly 51% from the field after that second-half performance.

Minnesota West (4-21, 2-10 MCAC South) now has two games remaining in the season with the next one coming at Western Technical College Saturday in a men's/women's doubleheader.

"We put a lot of focus on it lately is we got to learn how to compete, and we are," Tharp said. "I told the guys after the game at St. Cloud, again, we're up and we lose one late, is we're learning how to win and we're learning what it takes, and teams can't just walk in the gym and play Minnesota West anymore and just assume it's a win. They've got to strap up and play us and that's something that's a lot of credit to these kids."

Rochester 28 42 — 70

Minnesota West 31 19 — 50